Alexander McCall Smith’s profile could not be higher at the moment: the Today Show has featured him live twice, and author Amy Tan selected The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency as her book of the month. This delightful collection of short stories teems with more of the vivid characters and exotic settings that have become McCall Smith’s trademark. Among other places, we visit Portugal, Australia, and, of course, the southern Africa McCall Smith’s many fans know so well. Organized around the theme of the romantic encounter in all its varied forms, these hilarious stories are by turns surprising, enthralling, heartwarming, and, sometimes, just plain disastrous — but always universally recognizable. Full of the same irresistible imagination and delicious insight into the fascinating peculiarities of the human condition that have endeared The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency to thousands of readers, Heavenly Date is the perfect read for McCall Smith’s rapidly growing audience.