This book is so cute it almost hurts. It’s one of those little hardbacks, barely the size of a Harlequin, but it costs $20 hardcover. It features identical twins named Kitty and Josie Dupré, who run a catering business out of a cute little flower-covered cottage in N’Awlins. Not New Orleans – it is frequently called “N’Awlins” in this book. Josie has a cute little dog named Rosie, apparently so that I would get them mixed up, which I did. Josie walks Rosie by putting her in a little wagon and pulling her around the block. Isn’t that cute?

Rosie – that’s the dog – falls in love at first sight with a boxer named Zip, who belongs to hunky businessman Paul Brouillette. After one date with Paul, Josie is in love. When Paul has to go out of town, he and Josie agree to let Zip stay at her house, since Zip can’t bear to be parted from Rosie. Then Paul stays away for five days without calling. Josie is hurt. Obviously Paul doesn’t really want her; he’s just using her as a dog-sitter.

And that’s the entire sum of the conflict between Paul and Josie. There are some subplots about how a ghost connives to bring Josie and Paul together, and about how Paul ends his estrangement with his mother. But all these issues are easily wrapped up.

Since the plot is hardly weighty enough to take up all 214 of these pages, much of the book is given over to descriptions of New Orleans and food. Ms. Michaels might want to rethink her technique of giving travelogue descriptions in the characters’ conversations, which results in inhumanly stilted and artificial dialog, like this:

“Hey, maybe a picnic at Evangeline Oak, the legendary meeting place of Emmeline and Louis. You remember Longfellow’s poem Evangeline, don’t you? It’s the true story of Emmeline Labiche and Louis Arceneaux, two lovers who were separated for years before finally reuniting. Everyone loves that story and going to the old oak. Like I said, it’s a thought. By the way, how are you feeling?”

Josie and Paul have one date, one five-day misunderstanding, and a second date, for which Paul stands Josie up. Then they decide to get married. I didn’t think that they knew each other well enough for a third date, much less marriage. But since both characters were cardboard cutouts, it really didn’t matter.

I just have to mention something that irritated me. Several times a character will urge another character to buy a certain product or take advantage of a certain service. Several times, Kitty urges Josie to buy a CD, a copy of which accompanied my review copy of the book. I’m not qualified to be a music critic, and I won’t venture to review the CD. In another instance, Josie gives Kitty a Yorkie puppy and makes a point to tell her the name and location of the dog breeder. The person she mentions is a real breeder of Yorkies, and the author picture on the cover shows Ms. Michaels with a Yorkie in her arms.

I resent these apparent product placement ads in the middle of a novel. Even if Listen to Your Heart had been a good book, which it isn’t, these plugs would have jarred me out of the story. What’s next? Will we soon have romance novels interrupted when the hero who says, “Just a sec, honey, I need a beer. Ah, nothing like a Miller Lite to quench a man’s thirst – tastes great and less filling, too!” Fern Michaels is a best-selling author with lots of fans. She’s insulted those fans once by publishing this hastily-written, slapdash, shallow piece of fluff. She insults them again when she uses her popularity to peddle goods and services her readers.

The people in this book don’t act like people. They act like marionettes in a “N’Awlins” tourism bureau puppet show. The dogs definitely don’t act like real dogs; they act like plot devices. The storyline is weak and contrived, and cuteness is poured over the whole thing as if it’ll make readers overlook the story’s obvious flaws. All of that adds up to one of those books that made me angry with the author for writing it. If you buy Listen To Your Heart, I predict you’ll be sorry you parted with that $20. If you’re a die-hard Michaels fan, wait, at least, for the paperback. Better still, take one of your favorite books by this author off your keeper shelf and re-read it instead.