I don’t think I’ll ever forget where I was when I read Bound to Happen. I had started it on a flight from Denver to Newark and ended up finishing it as I sat for three hours on an airplane that never did take off. I was reading it in galley form and sharing with my sister as I finished pages. I think my little niece may have eaten a page or two. The situation was a little annoying, but as we sat on the plane (and eventually a train) we had a fun time reading anyway. If you’re ever stuck somewhere, this is a fun book to be stuck with. It’s not exactly grounded in reality, and the people in it are like no one I know. But sometimes that’s all part of the allure.

Sydney Ford is the CEO of gIRL gEAR, a web-based business that markets its own line of clothes, make-up, and accessories intended for young, fashion-savvy women. As the book begins, Sydney and seven friends are all stranded on a tropical paradise because of a mechanical problem with their yacht. They are taking part in a cruise that is actually a prize for a man named Ray Coffey. As winner of a game (detailed in the first book of this series, All Tied Up), Ray got to choose seven friends to accompany him on his little vacation. All the girls seem to have some affiliation with Sydney’s company, and all the guys are apparently Ray’s friends. Conveniently, they form four neatly matched pairs. It’s kind of like Nancy Drew, with Nancy and Ned, Burt and George, and Bess and Dave. Only no one here is the least bit pudgy like Bess, and the biggest mystery to be solved is “Who was getting it on on the balcony the other night?” Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Nancy and her “special friend” Ned never had sex like this.

Right from the start Sydney has her eye on Ray. He was her first lover back when she graduated from high school, and his looks have only improved since then. Sydney is a hard working girl, and she’s sure she deserves a hot fling under the tropical sun. Hey, don’t we all? Ray is perfectly amenable to this idea. But he also wants to know what makes Sydney tick. She ran out on him after the best sex of his life, and he wants to know why. He’d like to get to the bottom of all their problems, and have a little fun (wink, wink) along the way.

This is a romance between Sydney and Ray, but mostly it is about sex, sex, and more sex. If our eight friendly castaways aren’t doing it, they are either thinking about it, talking about it, or speculating about who else is doing it. This is the first Harlequin Blaze I’ve read, and I felt that it definitely lived up to its reputation for frank, hot sex – and plenty of it. The descriptions are plentiful, graphic, and fairly inventive. My sister swears she was skimming for the sex scenes, and although I saw her read plenty of the other stuff too I’m sure neither of us will ever think of the song No Woman, No Cry in the same way again. (Think lap dance, pole dance, striptease, and some enthusiastic voyeurs).

This book was fun for me in a campy way rather than a deep or meaningful way. Everyone in the book belongs to the tribe of Not Like Me, and at times I had to really suspend my disbelief or roll my eyes at the product name dropping. No one I know owns seventeen bathing suits, has a Sweet Sixteen party on a private island, or plays sexy truth or dare games (as an adult, that is). And my sister and I had a good laugh about the heroine’s mother telling her teenage daughter to get the stick out of her *ss and have some sex. Suffice it to say that motherly advice would never have been dispensed at our house when we were growing up. The whole thing has an anatomically correct Barbie and Ken vibe, as perfect, plastic people cavort with each other in the dreamy sun.

This is all a little silly, but sometimes that’s okay. Not everyone needs a deep, tortured hero or a brilliant crusader heroine. Sometimes we have enough reality at home, with a sink full of dishes or an annoying travel day from hell. That’s when you just need to say (as my sister did), “Can you pass me some more of that sex book?”