Review: Funny, snappy dialogue
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 13, 2014
It really makes me happy--like insanely happy when I pick up a freebie on Amazon, give it a whirl, and spend the whole day laughing and sighing and finishing the book knowing that there's at least three secondary characters who could have their own kick-ass story.The Love Laws is the second book in a (so far) 2-book series. The first was Lost & Found.  These books are about identical twin sisters, Jessica and Jamie, who have polar opposite personalities. In Lost & Found we got to know Jamie as the self-assured, carefree, flaky sex-pot dancer at a gentleman's club. But in The Love Laws we get down to the serious, driven and insecure core of Jamie. She's said farewell to her days of burlesque dancing and has moved on to selling her beautiful lingerie designs in her shop, Hidden Treasures. Only business isn't doing well and she's stressed out. Her main focus is to make her business succeed and to show herself and everyone else that she's not the dumb, flaky twin.Help on this front comes from Clay, Jamie's best friend and his sister, Cathy, who is a proofreader at The Vancouver Star. Cathy is looking to do more than proofread and she and Clay have concocted an idea that she and Jamie should work together on an article about schooling women on how to catch a man. The articles would end with a plug for Hidden Treasures and a picture of Jamie in her original designs, giving Hidden Treasure some much-needed exposure and help to get Cathy noticed at the paper. Win-Win. This is how The Love Laws are born. Jamie's on a mission and she's got no time for men, especially one hot former cop-turned crime writer, Kevin Hall.Kevin Hall is sexy, successful and has a knack for making women fall into bed with him. He spent five years on the Vancouver police force before becoming a writer of true crime books. He's Jamie's new brother-in-law's best friend and he's living a seemingly carefree, partying lifestyle that Jamie wants no part of.But like with Jamie, there's so much more going on under that facade Kevin wears. He also has professional problems.  His current book subject, a serial killer named Rawlings, is evil incarnate and starting to mess with Kevin's head. He's having nightmares and missing deadlines. He's binge-drinking and making bad choices about his bed partners, all to try to get this sicko out of his head.  Despite the s*** -storm that is his life at the current moment, he's set his sights on Jamie and pursues her even though she continues to refuse and rebuff him. He finds himself an "in" when she wants him to come into her store and pretend to flirt with Cathy, who needs a makeover and some serious ego boosting.The Love Laws is full of something Tamara Larson seems to excel at: Funny, snappy dialogue. Jamie's friend, Clay, was a hoot. Everything out of that guy's mouth was pure entertainment. Even when he wasn't talking, he and Raoul (I can't NOT give Raoul the mannequin an honorable mention) had me cracking up!Also, I loved that the characters were fully developed. In Lost & Found we really got to know Jessie and Duncan and we saw Jamie from their eyes. In The Love Laws we get to see THEM from Jamie's perspective and it gives us a realistic idea of the family dynamic. We get to see the way Jamie interprets Jessie's actions and words and we can really see how she does come off as a tad judgmental and unsupportive. Everybody is flawed, thinks uncharitable, selfish thoughts sometimes, makes crappy decisions, says nasty things... but they are all good people, wading through some rough patches.In the end, Jamie and Kevin figure out their professional problems, and come to see each other for who they really are inside and not what the world sees in them. Along the way they have some seriously hot, smoking sex, some laughs and we are left praying that mousy Cathy, Clay and (Lord help me, I have to have this story) Dylan get their own funny, sexy HEA's. (Hint, Hint, Ms. Larson)Oh, and I also should mention that Tamara Larson also writes some short erotic stories under the name Verena Vincent and her Delta of Venus Inc. series is worth checking out, too. Hot stuff.