Pillow Talk is an enjoyable enough contemporary romance featuring one of the nicest heroines I have encountered in a long time. However, some important issues are left unresolved at the end of the book. Author North, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, did not take advantage of the New Orleans setting. And, because the hero and the heroine had one of the worst communication problems I have ever seen, the over-all pleasure quotient for this read was merely average.

Margaret “Call me Meg” McKenzie Cooper grew up in a series of foster homes. As a consequence, family is all important to her and she is a loving wife and excellent mother to her three children. When her husband dies suddenly leaving them in finanacial straits, Meg goes to work as a waitress in Las Vegas. One evening she meets Jules Ponthier who promises to pay her $30,000 for a temporary marriage of convenience. Jules needs Meg’s vote to out-vote his brother and sell the family business to an outside source. They are married and that evening when Jules goes out to score some cocaine, he is shot by a policeman.

Enter Parker Ponthier, Jules’ brother. He comes in to bring his brother’s body back for burial and is surprised to find a widow. Meg goes back to New Orleans for the wake and funeral – she needs that money.

The Ponthier family is – well they are really disfunctional. Parker and Jules’ mother is named Teensy. She is always in the throes of a crying jag or taking some kind of medication from her all-but-live-in doctor friend. Teensy and her late husband hated each other. She smothered Jules with love and ignored Parker. Jules became a playboy and Parker a workaholic. The only normal member of the family is grandfather Ponthier, a gruff no-nonsense man with a kind heart who was always there for Parker.

Parker and Meg are thrown together by the funeral preparations and Parker is struck by Meg’s happy and loving disposition. He has always wanted a family of his own, but has had to work too hard – playboy Jules was no help. Soon, he finds himself fantasizing about Meg but is suspicious of her motives.

Meg and Parker never really talk to each other in this book and there are lots of misunderstandings. Meg finds out Jules had two ex-wives and a son who has been left in a strict boarding school. Parker finds out Meg is really a widow and has three children. Parker continues to be suspicious of Meg and she is not willing to open up and tell the truth behind her marriage to Jules. All the while, they are falling for each other. The attraction between Meg and Parker is full of sexual tension, but I wanted them to talk to each other, darn it!

There is a Big Misunderstanding in the last chapter when Meg and Parker finally do talk to each other, but the reconcilliation is blissful. However, homebody Meg who was previously married to a workaholic is now engaged to marry a man who is a self-confessed workholic. And Parker, the bachelor loner is inheriting a family of three children and his brother’s child as well. I hope these two talk more after their marriage than they did before it, or they will find themselve featured in Can This Marriage Be Saved?