Kiss and Tell
Grade : C

Kiss and Tell starts out with a TSTL moment by the heroine and doesn't quite manage to recover. Marnie Wright is spending a little time with her dog Duchess at her late grandmother's cabin in the woods. She's trying to sort out her life - does she want to keep taking the easy way out, working for her father's computer company in Silicon Valley, or does she want to follow her dream and live as an artist, maybe even move to Paris? Well, a more pressing question becomes: What to do when a walk leads her to another cabin and a very dangerous-looking man who is holding a shotgun, no less, who tells her to get lost. Now. In three different languages.

Marnie not only doesn't budge, but talks back a lot of nonsense and manages to antagonize poor, aggravated Jake Dolan before she finally saunters off, laughing because Duchess refuses to leave her new friend. Later, when her grandmother's cabin is destroyed, Jake helps Marnie by having her move in - she can't go back to civilization because the only bridge is impassable at the moment.

Jake has a lot of important stuff on his mind, but Marnie can't seem to shut up and keeps poking and prodding at him. There is a mutual attraction there, nonetheless. What Marnie has stumbled onto is actually some very dangerous stuff: Jake used to work for a Black Ops team, and somehow, something went terribly wrong and now he is not only wanted by Dancer, the terrorist Jake won't give up on, but he is also considered a traitor by his own organization.

A potentially thrilling storyline is dampened down by Jake's predictability and Marnie's behavior, and all those moments of lust that surface at the worst possible times, such as when they're in danger of being killed. In Jake's case, he is the stone-cold hero we have met before - he is known as the Tin Man because he supposedly has no heart, although we, of course, know better. He is also The Hero Who Has Been Betrayed Before; unluckily for Marnie, the betrayer was a slim blonde like herself, and Jake's suspicions about Marnie linger on, not that makes him immune to her charms.

Marnie, on the other hand, is flighty in an eager-to-experience-life way but is otherwise mostly harmless. She has spent her life being watched over by her father and brothers because she is the only girl and has had heart problems. She thrives on the moments of danger she shares with Jake. She gets plenty of thrills for her money, as well as throwing herself at Jake every chance she gets.

The twist in the storyline wasn't too difficult to discover so, all in all, this was a familiar way to spend a day. A less stereotypical hero and heroine would have made this book more enjoyable. It's not a terrible read, not a great one, either. It just didn't have much to elevate it from the rest of the pack.

Reviewed by Claudia Terrones
Grade : C

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : September 17, 2000

Publication Date: 2000

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Claudia Terrones

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