We hang on to this hope as Charlie proceeds with life while everything around her is crumbling. By the end, however, our own hope goes up in smoke and the disturbing ashes are left in our afterthoughts. Let's start with the jacket photo. It shows author Victoria N. Alexander from the back, naked, with the light playing off her splendidly rounded derriere. When you put such a photo on your book jacket, Alexander said, you invite three kinds of reaction.
Some people think the book insults women.
And some people are simply curious to read a book by the owner of this lovely bottom. Happily, this is not a stupid novel. It offers some memorable glimpses into the world of women who sells their charms, if not their bodies. In a Japanese club, men pay big bucks to converse with attractive women, have their drinks poured and their cigarettes lit. They are paying not for sex but, in Alexander's version, for hope.