A novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Lost in Translation heralds the debut of a unique new voice on the literary landscape. #160; #160;Nicole Mones creates an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land--only to discover her home, her heart, herself. At dawn in Beijing, Alice Mannegan pedals a bicycle through the deserted streets. #160; #160;An American by birth, a translator by profession, she spends her nights in Beijing's smoke-filled bars, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her intentions. #160; #160;All around her rushes the air of China, the scent of history and change, of a world where she has come to escape her father's love and her own pain. #160; #160;It is a world in which, each night as she slips from her hotel, she hopes to lose herself forever. For Alice, it began with a phone call from an American archaeologist seeking a translator. #160; #160;And it ended in an intoxicating journey of the heart--one that would plunge her into a nation's past, and into some of the most rarely glimpsed regions of China. #160; #160;Hired by an archaeologist searching for the bones of Peking Man, Alice joins an expedition that penetrates a vast, uncharted land and brings Professor Lin Shiyang into her life. #160; #160;As they draw closer to unearthing the secret of Peking Man, as the group's every move is followed, their every whisper recorded, Alice and Lin find shelter in each other, slowly putting to rest the ghosts of their pasts. #160; #160;What happens between them becomes one of the most breathtakingly erotic love stories in recent fiction. #160; #160;Indeed, Lost in Translation is a novel about love--between a nation and its past, between a man and a memory, between a father and a daughter. #160; #160;Its powerful impact confirms the extraordinary gifts of a master storyteller, Nicole Mones. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

An attention-grabbing opening chapter in which the protagonist, translator/interpreter Alice Mannegan, rides off on her bicycle to a sexual tryst in Beijing, hints that this debut suspense novel will be a racy read. But Alice's sensuality is just one factor in Mones's complex portrait of a woman in search of herself, played out against the exotic background of some of China's remotest regions, a story that reveals as much about character and cultural difference as it does about a search for priceless, long-lost fossils. China is Alice's spiritual home, where she feels far removed from her loving but racist father, a U.S congressman whose political opinions she deplores. But despite her desire to belong there, she is still considered an "outside woman." She signs on as interpreter for archeologist Adam Spencer, who believes that the remains of Peking Man were hidden in the Mongolian desert during WWII by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Joined by two Chinese scientists, they venture into remote regions where the urgency of the search is paralleled by Alice's increasing attraction to Dr. Lin Shiyang, whose wife vanished from a labor camp in that region 20 years ago, and by the unfolding story of the relationship of Teilhard and an American woman who loved him. The authenticity of Mones's background detail--from the rituals of ancestor worship to the workings of the PLA police and the food at a Mongolian banquet--brings fresh insight into the nuances of Chinese culture. Though the narrative tension is more intellectual than visceral, and some pivotal events of the plot seem too convenient, Mones succeeds in integrating archeological history, spiritual philosophy and cultural dislocation into a tale of identity on many levels. Author tour. Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

How to flee an oppressively loving father who is also a racist senator? For Alice Mannegan, the answer is to go to China, where she works as an interpreter when she's not sleeping around with Chinese men, trying desperately to embrace all China in the sexual act. Alice doesn't seem to grasp just how much she is hiding from herself, but still she's one smart cookie, which American paleoanthropologist Adam Spenser realizes when he hires her as interpreter for an expedition to track down Peking Man, lost after World War II. On the expedition, Alice launches a real love affair with Dr. Lin Shiyang and finally learns just how wrongheaded her obsession with China, particularly its past, has been. First novelist Mones writes smoothly and conveys a strong sense of China, where she has lived and worked. She also has some good points to make about love, family, and culture, but she doesn't explore them fully, focusing a bit too much on Alice's sexual escapades, which seem unnecessarily tawdry and a bit far-fetched. The Peking Man expedition also seems far-fetched, though it is evidently well researched. Enjoyable popular reading that just misses being something more. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/98.]--Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Alice Monnegan moved to China after college, and now, at 36, makes her living as a translator for visiting businessmen and other Americans. Alice is still unable to forgive her politician father for breaking up her only serious romance, a decade before, with a Chinese student. She often picks up Chinese men for one-night stands, as if to defy her father's racist beliefs. Alice's life begins to change when she gets a job helping an American professor search for the whereabouts of a great archaeological treasure: the bones of prehistoric Peking man, which disappeared following World War II. As Americans and Chinese scientists travel to northwest China, where the remains were last seen, Alice falls in love with one of the Chinese members of the team. Alice realizes that she must accept her past and who she really is in order to come to terms with both her father and the man she loves. A moderately entertaining first novel. (Reviewed July 1998)0385319347Nancy Pearl From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.