Say Yes
Grade : A

What're the odds of finding two great stories under the covers of one book? Slim to none? Heck, some months I have difficulty locating just one entertaining story. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both stories in the latest Harlequin Duets were enjoyable and contained characters worth spending time with.

We meet Sara, the heroine of Lori Foster's Say Yes, while she's smack-dab in the middle of her most embarrassing moment. She's just arrived home to find her fiance making love to another woman in her bed and loses total control of her emotions. In a fit of rage she grabs hold of the closet weapon - a plastic rake - and chases down the slut, muttering obscenities all the way. The chase ends when Sara follows the trollop into the home of her neighbor Gavin. He finds the scene highly amusing and is secretly relieved that Sara's fiance, whom Gavin always disliked, has screwed up in such a huge way. See, Gavin has been a little bit in love with Sara for months, but has respectfully kept his distance because of her engagement. Now that she's free he intends to pull out all the stops to win her love and will not settle for anything less. He knows before the book even begins that Sara is the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Wow, did he win some points with this reader right off the bat!

Sara only wants to put the embarrassing scene behind her and get on with her life. After this latest disastrous episode she's decided that love and marriage aren't worth the effort and plans to get a pet instead. She's not dead, however, and when her sexy neighbor unexpectedly begins to show an interest in her, she's more than willing to indulge in a hot fling with him. Sara is destined for disappointment, it seems, because Gavin has decided to refrain from any sexual activity until she rethinks her views on marriage and agrees to spend the rest of her life with him. He wants love and marriage, and refuses to give her what she thinks she wants.

Now there's a catchy setup that one doesn't come across too often! It sure had me eagerly turning the pages, and it only got better from there.

The situation Gavin has placed himself in is hilarious and forces Sara into the role of seductress. Gavin's thought process as he realizes the ramifications of his predicament is simply priceless: "But he was more determined, and therefore it stood to reason he could control his reactions better. At least he hoped he could. He prayed he could. Damn, could he?" Gavin's a charming hero who doesn't take the heroine's love for granted and instead spends the novel wooing her and her bedraggled animals.

Sarah is as easy to like as Gavin. She's down-to-earth, independent, and a wee bit insecure because she grew up the child of divorced parents who were too wrapped up in themselves to show her any affection. She secretly longs for love but fears it doesn't exist, and instead surrounds herself with pathetic, homeless animals. When she and Gavin get together it's as satisfying as a romance gets.

This one is easy to recommend and is an "A" read all the way. The story mainly concentrates on the couple and their romance - that's it - there are no boring subplots ruining the flow of things. It's funny, it's sensual, and there are even a few heart-tugging scenes. What more could a romance reader ask?

Buy it at Amazon/Apple Books/Barnes and Noble/Kobo

Reviewed by Laurie Shallah
Grade : A

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : May 7, 2000

Publication Date: 2000/03

Review Tags: neighbors

Recent Comments …

Laurie Shallah

What is Lorem Ipsum? Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x