Three Historical Novels Explore the Strength of Human Connection By Alida Becker It’s easy to see why Julia Claiborne Johnson filled BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME (Custom House, 288 pp., $28.99) with movie-star look-alikes. Doesn’t a romantic comedy set on a 1930s Nevada dude ranch teeming with about-to-be-divorced women owe a certain debt to the era’s big-screen classics? Then again, it’s hard to believe a cinematic version could be any more fun than the small-page antics of the aptly named Flying Leap’s two hired hands and the pair of wealthy “guests” who seem determined to make their required stint as legal state residents as memorable as possible.