Zack Jackson is a guy with a problem. With two flops behind him, the once hot film director and former child star has, as his Hollywood money man tells him, just one more chance to make a hit film. Fortunately for Zack, he’s dead certain the perfect vehicle is a true story he found in a history journal left behind on a plane. Written by a mousy (there’s a picture accompanying the article) female New Orleans university instructor, the article tells of a dramatic, late-19th Century love story featuring a prostitute with the proverbial heart of gold and a boxer from the bayou.

Zack’s pitch is so eloquent that the producer agrees to finance the film, but only on the condition that the mousy teacher serve as a technical consultant. A small enough price to pay, right?

Wrong. Said teacher, one Kate Matthews, is a bigtime stickler for historical accuracy. And, since the producer has given her the authority to approve – or not approve – anything that isn’t strictly the truth, she’s about to become one major pain in Zack Jackson’s butt.

Kate specializes in the social history of Storyville, New Orleans’ legendary red light district – a devotion that has led to a few career problems. The stuffy head of the department is looking for any excuse to block Kate’s tenure and a film with historical inaccuracies could be just the ticket. Especially since that Hollywood money man thinks plastering Kate all over the talk shows is the best way to market the film. So, in a quite literal sense, our heroine’s job is on the line. Wide-eyed and more than a bit naive about the film business (don’t they have Entertainment Tonight in New Orleans?), Kate is shocked – shocked I tell you – to find that the script contains a few elements that aren’t historically accurate. And, with the might of that bulldog producer behind her, Kate sets out to make certain that every detail of the film will be nothing less than strictly and completely true.

Okay, let me say that the premise here just seemed a bit silly. Who in this day and age would be surprised to find that Hollywood screenwriters take liberties with history? I mean, come on. But, with that said, I found Ooh, La La! to be an enjoyable and fun read.

Kate is an interesting heroine. And even though she comes complete with those two stock characters cropping up in book after book – the sullen daughter and the wacky mother – and despite the fact that she has made some really bad parenting decisions, I liked her. Her romance with Zack builds realistically and I enjoyed watching the cool and collected instructor’s emergence from the emotional shield she had so painstakingly constructed. Of course, it’s even better when the man who finally breaks through her shell is also the same man Kate adored when he starred as a young man in her favorite TV series. It’s fun to fantasize a romance with your teeny bopper crush (David Cassidy, where are you?) and Robin Wells does a nice job of filling in the lines.

Unfortunately, though, Zack is not nearly as three-dimensional a character as Kate. It’s hard to say why I felt this to be true since the author lets us inside Zack’s head enough to understand his fears for his career and the emotional damage inflicted by an unhappy childhood. Still, for all that, it almost seemed as if he was simply there to serve as Kate’s love interest. He was sexy, though, as well a decent guy and a nice fantasy character, but I just never felt that I knew him as well as I came to know Kate.

On the other hand, Robin Wells does a better job than most with the daughter and mother characters. Twelve-year old Skye is far from the conventional sullen pre-teen or teenage character and her feelings – and ambivalence – toward her mother rang true. Ruth, Kate’s mother, is a bit more problematic, since through much of the book she is nothing less than incredibly annoying. But by the book’s second half, Wells lets us in on the reasons for her obsession with crime and her agoraphobia, and the cardboard annoying character came to life nicely. Robin Wells even lets Mom have a romance of her own and it was an appealing secondary story.

Not without flaws and, equally, not without pleasures, Ooh, La La! is a book that could well appeal to readers who enjoy movie backgrounds, like New Orleans, and are looking for a few hours of not too taxing summertime reading.