The love eaters

The novel that launched Mary Lee Settle's outstanding career, The Love Eaters is an acid satire of bedroom and community tragedy. A wealthy, small-town theatrical group finds itself at the direction of a man whose designs extend beyond the stage. As he begins to lose control, so do his players, revealing appetites they scarcely knew they had. Settle's second novel, the highly acclaimed Kiss of Kin, centers on the funeral and last testament of Anna Mary Passmore. Drawn back to the Southern homeplace, members of the Passmore clan - all of whom nurse visions that the matriarch's bequests will solve their problems - grapple with the various ties that bind them and with the disturbing appearance of an unexpected heir. Published together for the first time, these novels offer compelling tales from Settle's early career.