The Expectant Executive is the next to last story in the year-long Elliotts saga. The heroine, Finola Elliott, who has figured in many of the past books, is a high-powered career woman. She runs Charisma, one of the top fashion magazines in the country, and is on track to win her father’s contest and become CEO of Elliott publications. She also had an unplanned pregnancy at age fifteen, and she never quite got over the way her father forced her to give up her baby (Jessie, the heroine of a previous book) for adoption. She sounds interesting, doesn’t she? But this book is a tremendous disappointment, descending into a pastiche of series romance cliché and unlikely events.

Providing a plot summary is quick work, because there’s just not much plot to discuss. Finola meets Travis, the adoptive father of her biological daughter, at Jessie’s engagement party in Colorado. They have unprotected sex in a barn, and Finola gets pregnant…again. She tells Travis, and they work out what to do about that. And they have sex a lot. That’s pretty much it.

My problems with the book were manifold:

• A 38 year old, high-powered executive has unprotected sex in a barn? And gets pregnant again? After already experiencing an unplanned pregnancy? I simply could not buy this.

• This is the second book in this series to have a hero from Colorado, and it’s the second book in the series with a hero who lives on a ranch. And wears a cowboy hat. And doesn’t like city ways. And spouts countrified crap about how in Colorado, unlike New York, men know how to take their time when they make love. Perhaps the Harlequin Powers That Be would be interested to know that Colorado has cities, too, and the people in them do not all wear cowboy hats or talk like country boys. There are also other occupations here beyond rancher and sheriff. If clichés were absolutely mandatory, Finola could have met some hot skiing or snowboarding enthusiast. Also, I doubt every man in New York makes love with an egg timer on the nightstand.

• Finola is not only surprisingly uninformed about birth control; she is also a complete novice when it comes to (wait for it) oral sex. When Travis decides to go south, if you get my drift, Finola expresses all the surprise, shock, and wonder of a Regency virgin. Which would have made perfect sense, were she a teenage heroine in 1816. With a present day heroine, a “he couldn’t possibly be going down there” reaction is beyond ridiculous, particularly when the heroine in question edits a fashion magazine. Maybe Charisma is a very maidenly magazine. Maybe Finola has never read her competitors like Cosmo and Glamour. Yeah, right.

• Finola and Travis have sex. They have sex often, and that’s pretty much all that they have in common – apart from their love for their daughter and their impending parenthood. I never saw how these two were soul mates, or believed that they were compatible out of the bedroom.

• I hoped that at the very least Finola would stick to her guns, finish her goals, and stay in New York, since editing the magazine was her life’s work. But of course, when one falls in love with a rancher, one must give up every career goal and chuck any ambition to the winds. No need to explore other options (psst…Colorado has cities! Cities where magazines are published!). Oh well.

The Elliotts is a carefully planned continuity series with twelve participants. While it has clearly run the gamut with plot themes – with everything from spies to amnesia to secret babies – this is the first time that it really felt ridiculous. Perhaps it was because two ranchers was at least one too many, and perhaps it was because Finola could have had an interesting, believable story had someone exercised a particle of creativity. Instead it feels like a phoned-in cop-out. If you’ve been following the series, you’re much better off imagining your own happily ever after for Finola; it would surely be better than this colossal disappointment.