NOT A DAY GOES BY

Bestselling Harris (Abide with Me, 1999, etc.) returns with an inspirational loves-me-not that reads like a trash-talking Magnificent Obsession.

The champagne is cooling, the flowers are cut, but sexy sports agent John Basil Henderson is phoning his fiancée's opulent hotel suite to say he isn't going to marry diva Yancey Harrington Braxton after all. Why not? That's the slender hook for this tart little fairy tale that turns out to be just too well turned-out (via countless details re fashions, decor, and the characters' perfect dimensions) to be true. Only a few months ago, when he popped the question to Yancey in front of a hushed opening-night audience in the Las Vegas production of Chicago she'd just joined as the headliner, Basil, his passion only fanned by bout after bout of supercharged loving, was in heaven. But now a whiff of mistrust has him tapping his beloved's phone and finding out all sorts of stuff he'd probably have rested easier between Yancey's sweet thighs without knowing. Has he been put off by the way she keeps stiffing him for money? Has he had enough of her greedy, meddlesome mother Ava? Has he discovered the shameful secret from the past that's suddenly invaded her dressing room? Or has he just had enough of the pretense that marrying this fine woman will cure him of the bisexuality every black stud within whiffing distance keeps reminding him of? The problems are serious enough, but the cartoon characters and designer prose ("At that moment Basil's heart was filled with so much love for Yancey he thought it would push right through his light-green cotton stretch sweater") will keep you at a safe distance from every joy and sorrow.

Big-hearted, simple-minded tosh that makes Waiting to Exhale look like Anna Karenina.