Writing a series of books can be a challenge for an author. Balancing the exposition in each succeeding book – too much will bore readers of the previous books, and too little leaves new readers bewildered – takes a lot of skill. In Foot Loose Leanne Banks expects the reader to jump right in, and though I’d previously read in the series, I was completely confused, and can only imagine how the uninitiated will react. The second half of the book takes place on the premises of Bellagio Shoes, where characters introduced in earlier books – and their relationships – come fully into play. If you’re a newbie to the series, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Amelia Parker is a fixer; as a temp she is considered a miracle worker wherever she is sent, and each department tries to hire her permanently. Her skills extend to dealing with people and she is assigned to act as aide to the reportedly extremely difficult Lillian Bellagio. Amelia quickly discovers that Lillian is more bluff than bite – although she promises to keep Lillian’s pleasant nature a secret from the Bellagio staff, who think she is a real fire eater.

Lillian asks Amelia to “baby sit” Brooke, the Bellagio heiress and a Paris Hilton-esque character whose every action is followed by the paparazzi and reported for all of those enquiring minds. Amelia teaches Brooke how to “dress down” and not draw so much attention to herself, and will even wear the dowdy clothes Amelia picks out for her…if she can pick some clothes for Amelia in return. A high point of the book is watching free her inner vamp with Brooke’s help.

Amelia doesn’t mind staying at Lillian’s Key West villa to help Brooke; she’s recovering from a breakup with her childhood sweetheart. As she has some time for reflection, she begins to realize how much of her life she changed to suit him, including giving up an ivy league scholarship because his grades were only good enough for a state school. After submerging her entire nature in an effort to please him, he left her – for a more exciting woman. So she sits in a Key West bar writing a “to do” list for her new, free life. Jack “The Shark” O’Connell watches, then offers to help her. Somehow all of his additions to her list begin with the word naked.

Jack is handsome venture capitalist who is attracted to Amelia and thinks meeting her is serendipitous as he is about to become a major player at Bellagio. He pumps her for inside information on the various personalities in control of the company – and periodically suggests that she not expect much for him as ie is a real bastard. What she doesn’t realize is that he is literally telling the truth. Jack is the illegitimate son of Dario Bellagio, Lillian’s husband. Lillian paid his mother a million dollars to take her child away and Dario never knew of Jack’s existence.

Jack is investing in Bellagio shoes and a condition of his investment is a seat on the Bellagio board. But he asks Lillian not to tell anyone he is a Bellagio – he wants to earn respect from the staff on his own. Jack arranges for Amelia to be called back to company headquarters with a job created just for her, where she can apply her Miss Fix-it abilities company-wide. Since Amelia is an intelligent woman, she accepts the job even when she discovers that Jack set it up for her.

To say that Jack is not well received by the top staff at Bellagio would be an understatement. His office was formerly a file closet and all of his suggestions are ignored by Marc Waterson (Feet First), who even ignores his wife Jenny’s support for Jack’s suggestion of a mid-price line of shoes. Marc resents Lillian’s foisting Jack onto the company, and sure there is some blackmail or illicit force being applied by Jack, he is determined to discover what it is.

Amelia manages to be a fixer without being annoying, and watching her come into her own rang true; I think most women at one time or another have changed themselves to catch or keep a man. Her metamorphosis into a woman who dressed as she wished and ventured into uncharted territories was well done and fun to read. As for Jack, he’s never really as described. He rose above a horrible childhood with a drug-addicted and bitter mother who went through Lillian’s pay-off like water. His meetings with Lillian were poignant, as he sits down with the woman he has been taught to hate from birth and realizes that there were two sides to the story. And the sexual tension between Amelia and Jack was palpable and believable; Banks always seems to deliver in this area.

Banks does one thing quite well in Foot Loose – she sets up the storyline for the next book in the series gracefully, and not with the heavy hand that’s all too common these days where connected books are concerned. On the other hand, although I enjoyed parts of Foot Loose, in the end I cannot truly recommend it because I didn’t want to have to re-read what came before in order to remember who was who…and how they got that way.