Thursday Book Review

Writing with her trademark wit and humour, Elaine Fox brings us another wonderfully charming contemporary romance about a beauty who finally finds love that is more than just skin deep.

Life can be difficult when you're stunningly beautiful. For Roxanne Rayeaux, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, beauty had its costs. Not only did she have to worry constantly about how she looked, but she was considered stupid by strangers. She became romantically involved with a man who turned out to be married. So Roxanne pitched the world of diets and philanderers and moved her orange cat, Cheeto (the closest she could come to that forbidden food) to Virginia to open a restaurant. She went looking for some peace and tranquillity and instead inherited the restaurant's contentious, but sexy bartender, Steve Serrano.

An average joe most of his life, Steve cannot deny Roxanne's obvious physical charms but thinks she is stuck up and pretentious –– not his type. Roxanne, suspicious of Steve's motives after a rash of break–ins occurs at the restaurant and a string of bad publicity appears in the local gossip column, cannot let her guard down around him. Besides he's not her type.

If only they weren't so darned attracted to each other...

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An easy to read contemporary story about Roxanne wanting to move on from her past as a model and not be that "person" anymore, to prove she can do something more than live on her looks. Of course, there's the "almost" bet between her restaurant bartender, Steve, and his best friend, and you can see the train wreck coming from the gate on that. And that is just the beginning of some pretty strong moments that show Miss Roxanne to have a real temper. There are a lot of (incorrect, by both parties) assumptions that move this story through its paces, and while I can see them being totally realistic, I did want to slap them both a couple times because they were both so assuming the worst of the other. One of the nice surprise elements was Steve had his emotions realized first, and she was left to catch up. It just felt...refreshing.

Overall, a strong story, and I really enjoyed Rita. Did she keep her flambouyant red hair throughout? I wonder how dear Nigel handled that. The historical background of the missing copy of the Declaration of Independence was a wonderful tale of make-believe. And Cheeto was just an ingenuis name for the cat.