I’ve read one other book by Robin Wells, Wild About You, and enjoyed it enough that I thought I’d give How to Score a shot. I wasn’t disappointed, and found the characters to be charming and fun, even if the plot lacks a little believability.

Sammi Matthews is a museum curator who’s having a bit of trouble: the curator she was hired to replace refuses to retire and is trying to get Sammi fired, her landlord is selling the house she’s renting, and Sammi has accidentally injured every guy she’s gone on a date with in the last year and a half. Unsure of how to fix everything going wrong in her life, Sammi hires a life coach to help her.

Chase Jones is an FBI agent by day and a life coach by night. Well, he’s not really a life coach; he’s just filling in temporarily for his brother Luke, who witnessed a mob hit and has to go into Witness Protection until the end of the trial. Since all of Luke’s coaching is done over the phone, he leaves Chase with a stack of files and instructions for each client.

Chase doesn’t have a high opinion of Luke’s profession or methods, believing them to be ineffectual and weak. Since Luke only had one introductory session with Sammi prior to entering Witness Protection, Chase decides to try out his own methods to get her life under control. But Chase’s curiosity about Sammi leads him to seek her out in person and the two begin dating — although that’s not Chase’s plan — while Chase continues to coach her as “Luke.”

I’m generally not a fan of romances with a deception storyline; however, I found myself having such fun that most of the time I wasn’t too frustrated over Chase’s continued deception. Chase really is a good guy, and he definitely doesn’t feel comfortable deceiving Sammi; he just didn’t expect to start falling for her and now can’t figure a good way out of the predicament. In spite of my dislike of the deception, his scenes as “Luke” were often quite funny.

The strength of this book isn’t in the plot, but rather the characters — both primary and secondary. Both Sammi and Chase are likeable characters, despite some obvious faults. For one, Chase comes off as very arrogant in the beginning of the book, but he grew on me fairly quickly. I found his very OCD way of approaching life quite amusing, and thought Sammi would do a great job of counteracting some of that rigidity. Sammi, while definitely not rigid, is also not flaky or stupid — except for a scene at the end when she lives in TSTL land briefly — and is so friendly and willing to help others that it’s really hard not to like her. Unfortunately, she is so nice that she often gets taken advantage of(most especially by her boss), which frustrated me at times.

The secondary characters provided an entertaining and unique diversion from the main storyline. One of Luke’s clients, a forty-something man desperately struggling to escape his domineering mother, provides several laugh-out-loud moments and amusing frustration on Chase’s part. The secondary romance between Sammi’s elderly boss and landlord was pleasantly different, and it was interesting to be rooting for a romance involving an otherwise quite unpleasant character.

I was having such fun reading How to Score that most of the time I didn’t mind suspending my disbelief over the plot or characters’ actions. And while I wasn’t quite happy with how long the deception lasted, I loved Chase’s unique method of groveling. Overall I found this book to be a very enjoyable way to spend a few hours.