SOURCE: "Love-Child Conquers All," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, April 10, 1988, p. 6.

In the following review, Bell finds The Hearts and Minds of Men somewhat heavy-handed initially but adds that the novel is redeemed in its second half.

Little Nell, in this grown-up fairy tale [The Hearts and Minds of Men], is a love child in the genuine sense of the word, conceived at the first glance exchanged by her parents at a party in 1960s London. As the prompt result of a blissful consummation, she preserves, through the ups and (more usually) downs of her parents' marriage, something of the radiant happiness of their first moments of mutual discovery. Nearly aborted by a panicking mother, she survives to become a Christmas Day baby, attended by astrological omens that give her an uncanny ability to attract dangerous events and nasty people into her benevolent orbit, but from infancy...