Bait and Switch is a story about two very different twins who trade places. Appropriately for a story about opposites, the book is also full of them: Two good heroes and two bland heroines. One enjoyable plot and one deeply annoying one.

Grant Mitchell, better known as Mitch, is an upstanding Atlanta cop. His twin brother Cary is more familiar with the shady side of the law, living a shiftless life in Charleston where he is deep in debt and unable to keep a job for long. One morning Cary turns up on Mitch’s doorstep, on the run from a bookie to whom he owes quite a bit of money. When it becomes clear that the bookie is a dangerous character involved in more serious illegal activities, Mitch agrees to switch places with his brother and go undercover in the man’s club to find out what’s going on and to get Cary out of this mess.

In Charleston, Mitch discovers that Cary neglected to mention a few things about his life, such as his wealthy girlfriend, Peyton. Cary stood her up for dinner with her parents the night he fled to Atlanta, and she arrives furious with him. Feeling obligated to save his brother’s relationship, Mitch manages to patch things up with Peyton, who believes he’s Cary. He’s soon caught in a balancing act, trying to juggle his investigation, two jobs, and the woman who’s starting to mean a little too much to him.

This part of Bait and Switch is a pleasant read. There’s enough plot to keep the story moving while allowing the romance to develop, and Mitch and Peyton are likable people. Unfortunately, the book also has a subplot, and none of these compliments apply.

Back in Atlanta, shy librarian Lizabeth Drinkmiller is stunned to see her teenage crush Grant Mitchell on the street. Not about to miss out on the chance she was too scared to take in high school, she approaches him, pretending to be a much more sophisticated woman named Leeza. Cary quickly figures out she thinks he’s Grant, and Leeza doesn’t know him because the twins went to different high schools. Rather than correct her misconception, he lets her think he is his brother and the pair set off on a romance plagued with misunderstandings.

This story didn’t make much sense to me. In high school, Mitch was the smart, studious one who played in the marching band, not the kind of guy you’d think Lizabeth would feel the need to pretend to be sophisticated to impress. Of course, she’s also a sad little librarian who’s spent her adult life hiding in a library instead of living it up, with no experience with men, so perhaps we’re supposed to assume she’s too pitiable to realize that. Also, the only reason I could tell why Cary didn’t immediately tell her his true identity was because he wanted to get her into bed. Charming, huh?

Mitch and Peyton’s story passed easily enough. There’s not enough depth to the characters or their relationship to make this more than a pleasant diversion, but it is buoyed by the characters’ charm and chemistry and helped by the subplot that kept the proceedings moving at a fast clip. “Leeza” and Cary’s story irritated me from the start and I began to resent it every time the focus switched to them and away from the main plot. There isn’t much to this storyline, just a lot of getting-to-know-you conversations, interrupted with one slip after another where they come close to revealing their true identities, and don’t. There is one very nice moment during the lovemaking scene where Cary responds to Lizabeth’s insecurity about the size of her breasts. Other than that, this plot was a chore to get through.

The heroes fare better than their love interests in terms of characterization. Mitch is easily the best character in the book. Honorable, decent, and trying to do the right thing, he’s good hero material. On the other hand, Cary is the only person to display any real growth and development over the course of the story. I didn’t like him at first, or for most of the book, and didn’t think I was going to like him at all. But, the author slowly reveals more of his personality and ultimately redeems him. I believed he had changed for the better in the end after everything that had happened, which is something I wouldn’t have predicted at the start.

The heroines pale in comparison. Peyton was nice enough, but all I knew about her by the end of the book was that her parents were snobs and she wanted to use her trust fund money to buy a carriage company. But at least she wasn’t annoying while Lizabeth was nothing but aggrevating and unlikable from the start. A walking cliché, there is nothing about her that makes her different from any of the other shy, inexperienced librarians wandering around in romance land. A woman still pining for her high school crush also seems more than a little pathetic. That’s a good way to describe her in general. Then when Lizabeth finally figures out who Cary is she throws a fit because he lied to her. Never mind that she’s also been lying to him about her identity all along. Add hypocrite to the list of unappealing things about her and there’s nothing there to like.

It’s probably worth mentioning that Bait and Switch was supposed to be a romantic comedy. There were some amusing parts, but I don’t think I laughed once, but to be honest, that wasn’t a real problem. Other than two instances of strained whimsy that stuck out, this didn’t strike me as a book where the author repeatedly tries to beat the reader over the head with forced humor that isn’t funny. I read it like a straight contemporary romance and it went down okay – at least the main story. It does have some good moments, but with a clinker like Lizabeth, not enough that I can recommend it.