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'Summer Of Ellen' Builds Lyrical, Sunny Suspense

Agnete Friis' new novel takes place in flashbacks, jumping between the present and a rural Danish farm during the summer of 1978 — a seemingly idyllic time, until two people go missing.
Source: Beth Novey

It's a curious process, looking back at marketing trends of yore. Take the ubiquity of the stepback covers in the romance section during the 1980s: It seemed that every handsome Scottish warrior squeezing a buxom lass came with one of those peek-a-boo cutouts.

A decade earlier, my mother's novels frequently bore the tagline "a

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