Some boldly, some timidly, the women in Bar Beach Diary take stock of their lives, then break the rules, exposing themselves to unfamiliar settings that challenge them further. Adventures may turn into misadventures, but potential is unleashed. Lives are changed. Sharpe performs magic here. She gives us a witty, stylish collection with plenty of heart, too. A disillusioned young diplomat finds solace on Bar Beach, which turns out to be more dangerous and more seductive than her embassy colleagues imagine. A visiting scholar is kidnapped by rebels in West Bengal. A purse snatching in Seville...

Reality-based yet meditative, immediately appealing surfaces reveal surprising depths in "The Danger is Seduction" work like a kaleidoscope. Time passes. Locales change. Faces come and go. The familiar becomes strange. Strange things become familiar. But constants evolve: a search for understanding, the balm of sympathy, a subversive humor. Pat Sharpe takes us with her as she ranges the world, seeking adventure and insight from Thimpu to Timbuktu, from Darjeeling to Moscow to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In this collection she introduces potters, tea pickers, lamas, a Mexican maid with a wrenching...