Seduction Theory is a sparkling debut collection of stories that capture the painfully funny intersection of sex and the (tentative) onset of maturity.

Thomas Beller's poised, alert, disarming, and ultra-contemporary tales of young life and young love in the city are piercing comedies of romantic misadventure. In a manner that is completely fresh and yet timeless they evoke the awkwardness and vulnerability of life in your twenties, when you feel you should know who you are - and you don't. Readers of all ages will ache with recognition at the stumbling mating dances that Beller's characters engage in.

Feigned sophistication is interrupted by attacks of delayed adolescence, real lust by spasms of equally real ambivalence. His young characters are so gauche yet appealing that you laugh and wince at the same time.