(artículo) A novel of passion, set to rhythm of flamenco

By Charles Matthews
Special to the Mercury News

Early in her career, Sarah Bird wrote a clutch of romance novels as Tory Cates -- a pseudonym that might be translated as ``conservative delicacies,'' which almost sums up the damsels-and-rakes genre in a phrase. But genre fiction is too limiting for a writer as irrepressibly clever as Bird, whose novels under her own name have earned her critical praise and a small, enthusiastic following. The best of them is probably ``The Yokota Officers Club,'' a coming-of-age tale about the rebellious daughter of an American military family stationed in Okinawa.

In her latest, ``The Flamenco Academy,'' Bird has given us another coming-of-age story, but her central plot is one that Tory Cates might have dreamed up: A shy virgin meets a dark, handsome, mysterious man who awakens in her the possibilities of passion, but when he disappears from her life as suddenly as he entered it, she becomes obsessed with finding and winning him. Her quest will take her into the heart of the exotic culture from which he emerged.

(leer +) [vía the philadelphia inquirer]