num_pages: 442
description: Jasper-Anne Clearys guide to salvaging your life when you find yourself publicly humiliated out of work and unemployable at 35not to mention newly single:1. Run away. Seriously theres no shame in disappearing. Go to that rustic old cottage your aunt left you. Look out for the colony of bats and the leaky roof. Oh and the barrel-chested neighbor with shoulders like the broad side of a barn. Definitely look out for him.2. Stop wallowing and stay busy. It doesnt matter whether you know how to bake or fix things around the house. Do it anyway. Dust off your southern hospitality and feed that burly bearded neighbor some pecan pie.3. Meet new people. Chat up the grumpy man-bear pretend to be his girlfriend when his mother puts you two on the spot agree to go as his date to a big family party. Dont worryits only temporary.4. Cry it out. Screwing up your life entitles you to wine broody-moody music and uninterrupted sobbing. 5. Get over it all by getting under someone. Count on your fake boyfriend to deliver some very real action between the sheets. 6. Move on. The disappearing act the cottage the faux beaunone of it can last forever. Linden Santillians guide to surviving the invasion when a hell-in-heels campaign strategist moves in next door:1. Do not engage. There is no good reason you should chop her wood haul her boxes or pick her apples.2. Do not accept gifts especially not the homemade ones. Disconnect the doorbell toss your phone over a bridge hide in the basement if you must but do not eat her pie. 3. Do not introduce her to your friends and family. Theyll favor her over you and never let you forget it.4. Do not intervene when shes crying on the back porch. Ignore every desire to fix the entire world for her. By no means should you take her into your arms and memorize her peach-sweet curves. 5. Do not take her to bed even if its just to get her out of your system.6. Do not under any circumstances fall in love with her.Warning: This hot modern take on Beauty and the Beast includes a meet-burglary an immortal cat a biohazard of a banana bread a meddling mother fancy toast and a temporary fling that starts feeling a little too permanent.
language: English
title: The Belle and the Beard
publisher: Vesper Press