Susanna Abse's Tell Me the Truth About Love consists of thirteen psychoanalytic allegories, with fairytale-like titles. Her aim is to give insight to the lay reader into some of the universal themes and dilemmas that draw couples together and, all too often, tear them apart.

Before reading the book, I anticipated that reviewing it for this journal might be awkward. How would the author present concepts and issues that are the bread and butter of a psychoanalytic approach to working with couples? How technical would be her use of language? And how on earth could a review of a book written for a general audience be made interesting to readers of this journal?

These anxieties soon evaporated as I became absorbed in the composite case studies, each presented in the conversational style of a tale. The author's aim of offering truths about our human need for others, the reality of our vulnerability, the inevitability of our dependence and our fear of it, is achieved in impressive fashion.