INTIMATE FRIENDS Charlotte Vale Allen. Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, c1983, 1984. 292pp, paper, $3.95 ISBN 0-7704-1860-0. Adult Reviewed by Barbara Walker. Volume 12 Number 6 1984 November Charlotte Vale Alien's latest novel, Intimate Friends, centres around Lynne Craig, who must deal with her husband's suicide and the guilt she feels about it. She submerges herself in her work on a news feature on rape, which she and her colleague have been working on, only to have it shelved at the end. She secludes herself in her home, trying to escape from the world. She meets and falls in love with two men, one a successful executive, the other, a young writer several years her junior. Fate intervenes and forces her to choose which man to love in order to achieve a fulfilling life. Summer fiction, on the market just in time to take to the cottage, stereotypical of what sells: men, women, sex, conflict, love. All the cliches of women's emancipation and struggle in the sixties are there. The women are well educated, beautiful, business-like, and unhappily wrapped up in a business world that belongs to men. The male characters are strong, handsome gods, predominantly boring, except for their virility. Not a memorable novel but one that will sell because of the author's track record of bestsellers. Barbara Walker, Etobicoke P.L., Etobi-coke, ON.