Fixation has the outlines of a workable if unoriginal romance – city girl on a ranch falls for cowboy type and is menaced by a stalker. But these and other plot elements are handled so ineptly that rather than entertaining me, the book left me in a constant state of aggravation and annoyance.

Jessica is the daughter of a wealthy businessman and is a very successful artist in her own right. She is also terrified of men and haunted by an incident from her childhood. Someone is out to ruin her reputation, planting stories in the paper portraying her as a trampy party girl. Her father, unfortunately, believes them, and decides that now is a good time for Jessica to take the traditional family “test” to prove herself worthy of participating in the family business (never mind that she appears to have been doing just that for a number of years). Instead of giving her some piece of the business to manage, however, he sends her off with Grady Bowman to live on his isolated ranch and act as a nanny toward his son.

Right from the start, I found myself asking questions about the characters’ illogical motivations and decisions. Why isn’t Jessica more concerned about these articles? She shrugs them off, yet later is willing to let someone who nearly raped her go free, because no one will believe her over what they read in the newspapers. Why is her father so willing to believe something that is completely opposite to everything he knows about his daughter? Why doesn’t this make Jessica angrier? And why is Grady willing to have a woman he believes is a pampered city princess, and something of a slut to boot, take care of his child?

It was once Jessica and Grady became lovers that this book would really have hit the wall, if it wouldn’t have involved throwing a computer monitor in this case.

Jessica, we are told close to the beginning of the book, has ideals for herself:

“Some people rationalized that sexual romps were harmless, normal human behavior, however, Jessica had a different set of ideals for herself. Ideals that had nothing to do with the fear that could knot and twist her insides. She wondered how many illegitimate children or adults didn’t feel pain from the lack of having any heritage that often resulted from the proclaimed harmless norm–a harmless norm that could end in death from disease.”

So, okay, our Jess is a high-minded idealist (not to mention rather priggish and judgmental) when it comes to premarital sex. That is, until she falls for Grady and decides to tempt him with her charms. When one thing leads to another, neither of them thinks for a moment about birth control, despite Jess’ previous maunderings about the evils of illegitimacy and the risk of disease. And Grady’s not off the hook either – if you thought the woman you were about to have sex with had some loose habits, wouldn’t you want to use a condom out of self-protection? Even less logically, after they have sex, Grady finally stops to wonder about birth control:

“A twenty-seven year old virgin–Grady groaned again, loudly. Hell, he’d anticipated her as experienced and naturally on some sort of birth control. The chances that she wasn’t using something were probably slim; nevertheless he would ask her tomorrow–he had to know.”

Why would the chances of a virgin not being on birth control be slim? Grady does indeed ask her the next day and – ooops! – Jessica forgot to tell him (and the author hasn’t told us up until now) that she is on birth control pills to regulate her period but – double oops! – forgot to bring them to the ranch with her. However, Jessica chooses to tell him neither of these things and instead lies and says she’s on the pill.

These are not characters I could identify with nor respect in any way. They made decisions based not on personal ideals or rational decisions but on the demands of the plot. The characters driving the suspense side of the story are equally irrational and unbelievable, particularly the mysterious crazy woman who, for no apparent reason, thinks she deserves Jessica’s place in the family. Her big master plan? If Jessica’s reputation is bad enough, her father will cast off his only beloved daughter, allowing the crazy woman to take Jessica’s place. Um, yeah.

Enough. Let’s just say that Fixation is chock full of the kind of improbable situations that only happen in formulaic romance novels. If you have a high tolerance for contrived plot devices and motivations, you might enjoy this book. Otherwise, you will want to fixate elsewhere.