Review: Humor But Little 'Contemporary' Romance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 5, 2010
Contained in this Jennifer Cruise bundle:Getting Rid Of Bradley- 1.5 StarsLucy Savage just got divorced. Her newly ex-husband didn't even bother showing up for the final signing. Her controlling, though well-intentioned, sister is ready to remove body parts off the man, but Lucy is feeling more confused than heartbroken. She wants answers for why her husband was making time with a blond bimbo in their house. Over lunch, she tries to explain to her sister that she's okay but ready to take control over her own life...as soon as she gets answers from Bradley for why he did what he did.Across the restaurant, two cops working on an embezzlement case overhear Lucy talking about Bradley and officer Zack Warren realizes that the tip he and his partner got to show up at this dive to nab Bradley the embezzler just went live. He confronts Lucy as she's leaving the restaurant...and then bullets are flying and he's getting beat up by the woman who's life he just saved.Lucy feels nothing but empowered as she realizes she's successfully defended herself against a mugging and takes off after the police show up to grab the wretched scruffy guy in leather who put his hands on her. She feels so empowered, in fact, she decides to dye her hair. Blond was a mistake, so she tries for brunette. Just as she's realizing that the attempted dye job left her hair dead and...well...green...the doorbell rings and the thug she'd beat up is standing there...with his policeman's shield in hand. Oops.Today Lucy got divorced, shot at, manhandled, dyed her hair green, and beat up a cop. She isn't having a good day.What started out as a sort of loony but amusing premise was quickly strained by an anorexic plot that pushed beyond the boundaries of plausibility or credulity and by characters that lacked more than superficial development. Zack is the Peter Pan who equates committed relationships with death and Lucy is the pushover who is so intent on remaking herself she's willfully blind to common sense.Though I prefer more three dimensional characters and found Zack's abrupt about-face on relationships as soon as he spends time with Lucy a bit hard to swallow, I honestly liked him. He's pretty uncomplicated and generally a nice guy - and any male who still wants a woman with ugly green hair is worth something. His character and his reaction to things is where all the humor in this book lays for me. I didn't find him believable, and he's pretty two dimensional, but I did generally enjoy him.What really turned me off this book was Lucy. I found her character to be so irredeemable - between her lack of common sense and worse, lack of intelligence, her absurdly obtuse reactions even after things started blowing up, and her apparent lack of self preservation, I couldn't figure out for the life of me how Zack could even tolerate her, let alone love her. I actually found her distasteful as a character and difficult to read when paired with Zack.Unfortunately, for a book like this to work for me, I have to like both leads. I so disliked Lucy that what would have been a silly and unrealistic but entertaining light romantic comedy, Getting Rid of Bradley, was ruined for me.Strange Bedpersons- 3 StarsOriginally published in 1994, there's little about this quirky romance about the ladder-climbing yuppie Republican lawyer Nick and the hippie, commune-raised, militant-feminist liberal Tess that doesn't feel almost painfully dated. That being said, Crusie pens a fast-paced plot that delves more deeply than I'd anticipated into the potential disaster of a relationship between two people who love each other, but who are so different they will never see eye to eye.Nick, despite his career-loving little heart, is a fun character who is actually pretty forgiving and able to compromise, though he does have a rather vanilla predilection for sex in bed. He's pretty darn forgiving of some pretty radical behavior and recognizes before Tess does that some compromise is in order, yet he still manages to mess up a little as he presses his own sense of fashion off onto the bohemian Tess and tries to wear down some of her rougher edges before he realizes that he's got to decide to accept her as is or lose her. I found Tess harder to like, though I did respect her commitment to her values. Still, her uncompromising attitude and selfish judgments of those who don't share her militant views were off-putting through most of the book.Strange Bedpersons started abruptly, too abruptly, with Nick banging on Tess' door and Tess closing it in his face, the two of them obviously already sharing a history. It took a little while to get the story on their history, so the opening of the book seemed jarring and left me feeling like I missed something. It made it hard to get into and I had to struggle a bit to 'catch up.' That did subside a bit as the story progressed, though the other issues - the dated feeling and my issues with Tess - didn't. Still, I can't argue Crusie's ability to nail witty, fast-moving dialogue and touch on human truisms with humor and intelligence. I just wish that prior to republication, this story had gone through a bit of a brush up to make it more socially and culturally timely and not quite so anachronistic to contemporary romance.What the Lady Wants- 4 StarsMitchell Peatwick Kincaid is a stockbroker, but a fondness for Sam Spade and a mild feeling of discontent with his job convinced him to get a private investigator license, and about a year ago, a bet with his boss and some friends - and a lot of alcohol - goaded him into leaving his prosperous career with his prestigious firm, putting the stuff from his monied life into storage, and taking on private detecting as a career under the name Mitchell Peatwick. And if he can get his private investigation firm into the black in a year, he'll win that $10,000 bet.Twelve months of private investigating, however, taught Mitch two things: everybody lies, and real life private investigation work doesn't resemble anything remotely similar to Sam Spade's life. Until SHE walked in.SHE is Mae Belle Sullivan and she's looking for a PI who isn't all that bright so she can lie to him. Not for kicks, but to get help finding answers following the death of her uncle. Answers that will save Mae from financial ruin and explain what her reprehensible old fart of a relative was doing with all the art and keepsakes that have been disappearing from his house for the past few months. An overheard conversation pointed her in the direction of her uncle's journal, but it's been missing since he died and Mae's starting to get frantic to find it. So she lies. And she uses her feminine wiles. And she pays Mitch Peatwick just about everything in her bank account to investigate the murder of her uncle. Who was in his seventies, had a heart condition and a twenty-five year old mistress, and died in her bed. Mae's fairly certain it wasn't murder.Mitch knows he's being lied to by the delicious-looking Mae Belle, but her retainer pushes him into the black and secures his bet...and anything is better than trailing cheating spouses, so he takes her case. There are just a couple of problems for them both. Mitch isn't anywhere near as slow as Mae had hoped, and as more and more clues start to pile up, her uncle's death starts to look more and more like an actual murder - even to Mae.With a quirky cast of primary and secondary characters and a twisting, rollicking plot that includes suspense, mystery, romance, and comedy, What the Lady Wants delivers a lot of charm and a few good hours of light entertainment. Originally published in 1995, the story is a little worn around the edges and has a bit of a dated patina to it, but not so much that it detracts from the story as in some of Crusie's books. It's more like a faint scent on the air than a bat upside the head. Noticeable, but not painful.Mitch is a fun character, and quicker than he looks. Which is probably a good thing. I'm dating myself here, but he reminded me a lot of Magnum PI or Rick Simon from Simon & Simon - a bit cynical about life, a bit sloppy on the outside but sharp and thorough when he needed to be. Mae was endearing. Intelligent and kind, with a streak of independence a mile wide and a determination that is formidable. She's a bit stubborn when she needs to be, but not so cold as to be unappealing as a person. She cares about the people she loves and takes on the responsibility of caring for them, as needed. Together they made a good couple, and their banter was one of the high points of the book.Crusie excels at quickly paced plots with quirky characters and a lot of witty, intelligent, and sarcastic banter. It's what keeps me coming back to her when I want or need some brain candy. I'd love to see this story get a bit of a modernized polish to clear away the dated patina, but even as it stands, I liked it quite a bit.Charlie All Night- 3.5 StarsWhen you're the go-to girl at the radio station and you're producing the number one drive time show in the area, you've got a lot of responsibility and your future is looking bright. When the talent of that show dumps you, then two months later fires you from the show, you're bright future starts to look more like flames from a crash and burn. Allie McGuffey is feeling the heat from those flames after her radio personality ex-boyfriend Mark dumps her as producer and the station puts her on a new overnight time slot. Pushed from drive time to overnight is humiliating. Pushed there by her ex-boyfriend with his supercilious attitude and delusions of competency is even worse.Putting on a good face just leads to another crisis as a mad dash to the nearest bar/restaurant with her ex hot on her heels forces Allie into uncharted waters. She picks up the first non-suit wearing male she can find and desperately tries to act like she's perfectly okay while her insides are still quaking. Though the rugged man she clings to is obviously surprised by her blatant come on, he doesn't sell her out, which makes him a hero in Allie's book.Charlie Tenniel is a bit of a bounce around. He doesn't stay in one place too long, doesn't limit himself to doing one thing for his life, either. His wanderlust is a constant disappointment for his socially formidable father. His brother, radio personality Ten Tenniel, was more the man his father wanted him to be, but look where that got him - a drug habit and escape from prosecution courtesy of their father's connections. Charlie wasn't going to go out like that. He was, however, going to take the job his father wanted him to take as a favor to the station owner, an old family friend. An anonymous tip claims knowledge of a drug ring opperating from the station and Charlie's been conscripted to chase down the responsible party. He just wants to fly under the radar for the six weeks or so he plans to stay in town, so having Allie pressed up against him is just fine, but when he realizes she's his new producer and intends to make him a star, he's just as adamant that she doesn't.His position would probably be a lot stronger if he could just stay out of her bed.While the premise of Charlie All Night is a bit of a stretch and the actions of Allie and Charlie seem more than a little irresponsible both sexually and professionally, I can't argue that the story itself is light, fun entertainment with plenty of endearing moments. I enjoyed the banter and romantic development between Allie and Charlie. Crusie does banter and endearing really well and it's definitely in evidence here. There's not much to the plot, though, and with an original publication date of 1996, there's a dated feel to both the technology and equipment described in the station and a definite pre-Monica Lewinsky air of sexual permissiveness in the work place that didn't translate well for me.So long as you don't take the book too seriously, or expect much in the way of depth of plot or character, there's still a lot of entertainment to be had from the story of Charlie and Allie, two people who won't be poster children for sexual harassment litigation any time soon, but who still managed to make me chuckle.Originally reviewed by title for One Good Book Deserves Another.