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The Tiger Catcher Page 41


  “He’s both a jester and a knight without any help from me, believe me,” said Julian.

  Josephine kissed him without breaking stride. “You get bonus points for today,” she said. “Wait until we get home.”

  While she walked through Limbo past the violent heretics and rowed down the River Styx in Paradise in the Park, Julian drove around L.A. looking for new places where she might fall in love with him, like Disneyland. New places where his hands could touch her body. They strolled down Beverly and shopped for some costume jewelry, they sat at the Montage and whispered in nostalgia for the old Hotel Bel Age that overlooked the hills. He raised a glass to her in the Viper Room where not too long ago someone young and beautiful died. Someone young and beautiful always died in L.A. And when the wind blew in from Laurel Canyon, she lay in his bed and drowned in his love and wished for coral trees and red gums, while Julian wished for nothing because everything had come.

  But that was then.

  About the Author

  PAULLINA SIMONS is the author of Tully and The Bronze Horseman, as well as twelve other beloved novels, a memoir, a cookbook, and two children’s books. Born in Leningrad, USSR, Paullina immigrated to the United States in the mid-seventies; has lived in Rome, London, and Dallas; and now lives in New York with her husband and half of her children.

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  Also by Paullina Simons

  FICTION

  Tully

  Red Leaves

  Eleven Hours

  The Bronze Horseman

  Tatiana and Alexander

  The Girl in Times Square

  Road to Paradise

  The Summer Garden

  A Song in the Daylight

  Children of Liberty

  Bellagrand

  Lone Star

  NONFICTION

  Six Days in Leningrad

  COOKBOOK

  Tatiana’s Table

  CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  I Love My Baby Because . . .

  Poppet Gets Two Big Brothers

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE TIGER CATCHER. Copyright © 2019 by Paullina Simons. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Originally published as The Tiger Catcher in Australia in 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited

  FIRST EDITION

  Cover design © 2019 HarperCollins Australia

  Cover photographs © Daniel Viñé Garcia / Getty Images (hollywood hills); © Cavan Images / Getty Images (palm trees); © Mark Owen / Trevillion Images (couple)

  Digital Edition MAY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-239477-4

  Version 04142019

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-239476-7

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