A Sign of the Eighties

This delightful new novel by the author of Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York features three contemporary inhabitants of the Big Apple. Shelley Silver is a successful career woman who has set her sights on the one thing she thinks her life lacksa husband. The object of her pursuit is Mickey Burke, a divorced sitcom writer who has no desire to test the matrimonial waters again. Shelley plots her strategies with the care of an army general planning an invasion, but to no availMickey remains firmly, happily unmarried. Into their lives comes Astra Rainbow Blakely, Mickey's new secretary, a love child born in the late '60s who wants nothing more than to be like everybody else. Astra Rainbow is a walking textbook of proper office practices, but as Mickey and Shelley get to know the young woman, they discover there is more to her than meets the eye. Parent writes about these urbanites with humor, insight and sympathy, producing a is consistently entertaining tale. First serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. (May 22)