But First for Love

World War II threatens to engulf Europe as this formulaic romance opens on 18-year-old Cyrielle Lazare, packing to leave her Paris home for neutral Turkey, where she will live with a trusted friend of her affluent, Jewish, art-dealer father. Cyrielle falls madly in love with fabled Istanbul, with Turkish cuisine and with Omer Turan, dashing, wealthy son of her host family. Plotting the lofty ups and rock-bottom downs of Cyrielle and Omer Turan's long marriage, Stern introduces such serious topics as the Holocaust and the early death of a child. But her style is inadequate to bear the weight of these issues, and she succeeds only in trivializing them. Beautiful Cyrielle and handsome Omer go through all the affliction and adversity required of fairy-tale figures before they triumph. This predictable love story ends with the celebration of Cyrielle's 50th birthday aboard the spectacular Turan yacht. (Feb.)