"This one won my heart"

Katie Macalister's first book NOBLE INTENTIONS was a sharp, funny and so FRESH Regency Historical. I was eager to read more from her. But then, I had to wait a year! Fortunately, her next works are due out in rapid succession, so we will not have to suffer again.

I grew up with the oddball humor that delighted in the quirkiness of the Brits. Katie Macalister understands this and puts it on a showcase guarantee to have you HOWLING. To say this book is a contemporary romance is to say the Titanic was a ship. It is warm, loving, sexy and quirky with a capital Q. Katie's freshness gives you a tale you will not forget. She burrows a way into your heart and leaves you so sorry when you have to put it down.

Alexandra Freemar is a Yank on a two-month stay in London to write her first romance book. Told in first person, it's a little jarring for first few pages. Years ago, Gothics were mostly in first person, but that style faded and first person point of view is an oddity in today's market. However, Katie wields first person with a razor sharp wit, and you will soon be in the flow. Alix is a bit of a failure at life. Twenty-nine, divorced and with the mother from hell reminding her of all her failures, so she views her writing this book as a make or break point in her life. She does not have time for romance, though she is not against a quick summer fling. Her landlady says she has MR. PERFECT for Alix, but he won't be interested in a quick fling.

The next day she meets Detective Inspector Alexander Black, a Scotland Yard detective in the Internet Squad who closes down porn sites on the net. He lives in the apartment just above Alix's and just happens to be the "Mr. Right" that her landlady wanted to introduce her to, sure they are a perfect match. They are instantly attracted to each other, but having been hurt so many times in the past, Alix is scared of how strongly she is falling in love with Alex. Their romance is wickedly funny, steamy sexy and dead on. Katie sprinkles the mix with warm and loving, strong supporting character, that are as vivid as the leads, and you end up wishing you could live in this zany apartment building.

But the romance is only half the joy. You actually get to read Alix's 'WIP' (Work in Progress), some of the most terrible purple prose ever put to pen as she drags her book around London asking for everyone's opinions and input from the grocery to her hairdresser, and learning in the process 'too many cooks spoil the soup'.

I saw one reviewer on another site say they got tired of Alix's self-centeredness and I'm sorry they missed this point. Alix's is a wounded, long-unloved bird and going through healing and rebirth. This love is that once in a lifetime BIG ONE and that is so scarey. She jumps at the first excuse to push Alex away from her knowing if she fails in this the loss will destroy her. Sure the readers gets ticked at Alix, just as the other characters in the book do! You see, it is not selfishness, but SURVIVAL, her defense against being hurt yet once again. She is flawed and is having to remake herself, to grow, so I applaud her less than perfect heroine.

It's a brilliant, witty romp that is just so original it will go on my keeper shelf and be visited like an old friend. My one fear, often Yanks do not 'understand' Brit humor and just might miss what a gem this one is.

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Courtesy Amazon.com
Posted March 28, 2003

American versus Englishman--will it be a war of wits, or a battle to find their hearts? Alix hasn't had much luck in her life, but a trip to London, a matchmaking landlady, and the handsome Scotland Yard detective living above her indicate her luck is about to change. Has she truly found her perfect man, or will the disasters that dog her steps destroy everything she's hoped for?

Summary

Alexandra Freemar should be in heaven--she's just been handed everything she's ever wanted on a silver plate: a three month stay in London, the time to write the book of her heart, and the chance to finally prove to her mother that she's not the miserable failure her past indicates. Free-spirited, unconventional, and able to find the absurd in almost any situation, Alix finds that heaven isn't what it's cracked up to be when fate, in the form of a matchmaking landlady who promises to fix her up with her perfect soul mate, hands her the devilishly handsome man who lives upstairs. Her perfect man? Hardly! Her perfect man is not a workaholic, straight-laced detective inspector from Scotland Yard who wouldn't recognize fun if it bit him on his (extremely attractive) behind.

Alexander Black is a man with a mission, and no one is going to distract him from that, not even the uninhibited, carefree American who personifies everything he dislikes in a woman: she belittles his devotion to work, insists on dragging him into the most unlikely of situations, exudes sexuality that makes his mouth go dry whenever he's near her, and teases him with a brashness that's utterly foreign to him. But underneath that sassy mouth and devil-may-care exterior, he senses a wounded woman who's calling out to him, and try as he might, he just can't refuse answering.