You know, you guys really make me want to read some Hardy to see what all the bloody fuss is about.

Okay, it's time to play Guess the Book! I read a book in ninth grade for English class. All I remember is that it was about a man who fell in love with a woman in a painting, and I think he ended up going inside the painting, maybe? And there was water involved, like an ocean. And I seem to recall the word "Alhambra." It may have been the name of the bar where he talked about this woman to the bartender.

I randomly recalled it the other day, and now it's bugging me that I don't remember what book it is.

Love Roddy Doyle.

Me too! I must've read Paddy Clark, ha ha ha a hundred times when I was a teenager. I havent looked at it in years though. Maybe it's time to root it out again now I've made it through my backlog of books.

P-C, could it be Portrait of Jennie?

YES THAT IS TOTALLY WHAT IT IS OMG.

And I knew the main character's name started with an E: Eben!

AmyLiz, Sharon Shinn has written science fiction (very romancey ones, at that) and YA books...but the YA books aren't NOT SF, they're just shelved under YA.

I'm impressed that you got it, JZ, considering I got so much of the basic plot wrong.

Well "Guy falls in love with a woman in a painting" is plenty enough to narrow it down. Plus, the film version was just on TMC a few weeks ago (well worth checking out, BTW), so my hazy memories of gobbling the print version down as an 8th grade bibliomaniac had been very recently refreshed.

Well "Guy falls in love with a woman in a painting" is plenty enough to narrow it down.

Yeah, but apparently, that's not even how it goes. It's like The Time Traveler's Husband, except it ends with the dude painting the chick. And a tidal wave for some reason.

Has E.B. White been mentioned yet? Elements of Style on the one hand, Stuart Little on the other.

Didn't James Patterson take a break from thrillers and write a romance?

And John Grisham had that one departure, The Painted House, right?