When I find an author I’m excited about, I always go looking for her backlist. It’s a very satisfying search when an author has been prolific, but sometimes when exploring her backlist, it becomes clear that an author has evolved into a style I enjoy. In reading Janet Evanovich’s re-write of her old category Full House, I became sadly aware that she falls into the-newer-stuff-is-better group of authors. Full House was originally written under the pen name Steffie Hall, and Evanovich paired up with author Charlotte Hughes to expand it and improve it. I haven’t read the original, but if this version is improved, it was without a doubt terrible the first time around.

Billie Pearce is a 38-year-old divorced mother of two. Her kids are scheduled to spend a month with the father on vacation, and Billie decides to use the time she has away from them to learn to excel at a sport. Her ex-husband is incredibly athletic, and Billie is determined to master a sport to earn her kids’ admiration. Unfortunately, she chooses to learn to play polo. Having no experience riding horses, she muffs her first lesson and winds up getting injured. Her new teacher has to take her to the ER for treatment.

Nick Kaharchek, polo teacher, newspaper owner, and overall rich guy, doesn’t know quite what to make of Billie Pearce. It’s obvious she’ll never play polo. He’s drawn to her anyway. But despite his attraction, he takes advantage of her post-ER wooziness to talk her into housing his annoying cousin Deedee until her wedding. He tells Billie that Deedee will be no trouble and will, in fact, pay rent. When Billie wakes up the next morning, Nick hasn’t lost any time. Deedee is already installed in Billie’s guest room making demands and insulting comments.

But though Deedee is a twit, Billie actually grows fond of her flaky ways. Reciprocating the affection, Deedee decides it’s her duty to set Billie up with someone suitable. Horrified at what Deedee considers suitable (her fiancé is a 7-foot-tall professional wrestler), Billie tells her in confidence (and half in jest) that she’s got a thing for Nick. Soon a fake engagement is underway between Billie and Nick. The problem is, neither one of them wants it to be fake. Has true love finally caught up with them?

If you read the above paragraphs and the word contrived did not come to mind, take a second gander. There is no reason why Deedee couldn’t stay at a hotel if she were truly driving Nick bonkers. She’s rich. She’s paying rent to Billie. What kind of prima donna is amenable to staying in a stranger’s guest bedroom? Isn’t it convenient that the kids are gone so that Billie and Nick can fool around and not have to worry about them? For that matter, what kind of person takes advantage of an injured student’s fuzziness to get rid of a relative? And what kind of person allows it? And where else but a romance novel or B movie do you find fake engagements? All these questions are unanswerable. Evanovich obviously wanted to throw her characters together in wacky situations, and the reader is forced to suspend all logic in order to go along with what’s happening.

Then there are all the goofy secondary characters. There’s not a realistic one in the bunch. Deedee’s annoyingly stereotypical. She’s insulting, childish, demanding, vain, and shallow, but we’re supposed to like her anyway. Nick’s cousin Max is a genius juvenile delinquent. At sixteen he’s already attending college and can hack into any computer system with the proper tools. He’s fairly troubled, but we’re supposed to believe that Billie can reform him in days with hugs and a bit of discipline. Other strange characters; strippers, professional wrestlers, uber-savvy neighbor kids come and go, there for no apparent reason except to wise-crack. Basically, this is a cast of dingbats.

The book has little structure. There are a lot of set scenes but no rhyme or reason for any of them. Stuff happens and then other stuff happens. Billie and Nick vacillate between lust-think and uncertainty about the relationship. This got to be very repetitive. Billie wondered over and over if she should marry Nick, if he was the right guy for her. After all, she thinks ad nauseum, we’re very different people. Maybe you ought to give the relationship more than, say, two weeks, Billie. Then you might know if he’s the right guy for you.

When Billie’s children do make an appearance they bond almost immediately with Nick. With Nick! The guy who conned a drugged up woman into taking his cousin off his hands. This guy wouldn’t know self-sacrificing if it slapped him across the face. He’s hardly step-father material. For that matter, he’s not hero material either. During the first part of the book he plots steadily to get Billie into bed with him even though he thinks he’ll dump her when he gets tired of her.

I did not find this book funny. It’s full of pratfalls and slapstick humor, most of which feels completely artifical, as if Evanovich was thinking, “This part is a little slow, maybe we should have Billie trip on a banana peel! Yes, that’s it! Insert banana peel.” Evanovich has written some sterling dialogue in her Stephanie Plum series. None of that wit is in evidence here.

Probably the best part of the book is the wrap up. There’s a tiny mystery that gets developed throughout and picks up speed at the end. This wound up being the only focused part of the story, though some of the explanation behind it doesn’t make a whole great lot of sense. Still, the high tension at the end of the book was the most readable part.

I wish I could have just read the original Full House since it was apparently at least 150 pages shorter. The re-write feels padded and artificial. It is full of too-wacky secondary characters and contrived situations. It’s not funny. If you’re in dire need of an Evanovich fix and can’t wait until Visions of Sugar Plums hits the stores in November, I would suggest re-reading the Plum series over trying this one.