"Shining examples of the author's style and humor!"

MaryJanice Davidson, one of my favorite authors, is most known for her shapeshifter stories. This collection of three novellas (two of them interrelated) is a straight contemporary, but still plenty of fun and reflecting a lot of trademark MJ touches.

Sweet Strangers

Renee had been, until two days ago, head of security at Anodyne, a biotech research firm owned by the slimy Nicholas Jekell, referred to as "The Jackal". She's now on the run, accused of stealing a vial of a secret new experimental drug. The police are after her, Anodyne's own nasty security forces are after her--and she just happens to jump into an elevator with Eric Axelrod, former National Security Agency employee and very recently a freelance private eye. Grabbing Renee and recovering the stolen vial could launch his new career. But he's also willing to listen to her side of the story. Renee just isn't willing to trust him--she'll steal his wallet, jump out of the hotel window, and try everything else to escape him. It's only when she realizes that he's not in cahoots with Anodyne and that there is something very seriously underhanded going on at the company that she is willing to cooperate with him. Of course, they've already "cooperated" quite well in that hotel room bed . . .

Renee is another of Ms. Davidson's entertaining and admirable kick-ass heroines. She's smart, feisty, and determined, and not about to back down to anyone. The tricks she pulls on Eric, and her rather bewildered reaction to realizing how much she was attracted to him, had me laughing out loud. The revelations about the shenanigans going on with the new miracle drug make a realistic story and reveal unexpected depths in the characters.

Lovely Lies

Lori has been hiding out for the past year, ever since her mother died and left her a fortune. She knows her really nasty and evil stepfather and stepbrother want that money for themselves and are willing to behave in underhanded and illegal ways to get control of her and her money. Lucy has seen how the family wealth made her mother miserable, so she decides she wants nothing to do with it and plans to give it all away to good causes. But she wants to visit and investigate those charities personally before handing over the money, and she needs someone to protect her while she does that. So she hires the cynical and street-smart Peter Random. He's not really interested in being a bodyguard, especially for a woman he found passed out drunk in the backseat of his car, but he needs a job and this one seems easy.

Although the Anodyne situation from the first story is briefly mentioned in this one, the plots of the two stories are not related. Peter was a secondary character in Sweet Strangers--a bad-guy accomplice of The Jackal; the Peter in this story may have the same name but is a totally different personality.

I found this the weakest of the three stories. Peter was an enticing hero, but it was annoying to have so many mentions of his mysterious background, and then have many of them left unresolved or unrevealed by the end. Lori was a disappointing heroine--rather wimpy and not overly bright. I found the plot weak--there was actually no real threat from the "villains", since they had no legal hold over Lori and no way to steal her money. She had the support of her mother's lawyer, and if she'd been halfway sensible and shown a little backbone, she wouldn't have needed to hide out for a year or to hire Peter. There were several unrealistic and not-quite-believable points to the storyline that kept throwing me out of the action. If you can temporarily turn off your common sense, this story can be a pleasant and undemanding sweet romantic read.

Delightful Deception

This story brings back the brilliant and driven Dr. Thea Foster, MD, PhD, MBBS, PharmD--medical researcher at Anodyne and the person who invented the miracle drug from Sweet Strangers. The Jackal is now gone and Anodyne has a new CEO. Wunderkind Jimmy Scrye is young, incredibly wealthy, a genius who rescues ailing biotech firms, and a total kook. The Boy Wonder looks like a grown-up Opie, is in constant hyper motion, has decorated his executive office like Toyland--and he wants Thea to come up with another brilliant medical discovery post-haste. Thea is stunned and confused not only by her new boss, but by the overwhelming sexual fantasies she's having about him. He isn't her type at all AND he's younger than her; how can she be thinking this way? But she understands his motivation for the research he orders her to do--or at least she thinks she does, until she decides Jimmy is using her infatuation with him to get what he wants, both in and out of bed.

The dialogue in this story was even funnier than in the first one! Whether it's Jimmy talking to Thea, or Thea talking to herself, you'll be howling at the conversations. These two brilliant and over-educated people are totally inexperienced and unskilled at real-life relationships, and they fumble their way through how to manage their attraction to each other.

Definitely read this book for Renee's and Thea's stories, shining examples of MaryJanice Davidson's style and humor.

Reviewed by Raelene Gorlinsky
Courtesy Sensual Romance
Posted September 23, 2003

Summary

Renee Jardin never meant to become the world's most sought-after thief. But the minute she walks out of her biotech firm accidentally carrying "The Cure"— the most important scientific discovery of the century— she's on the run from ruthless bioengineers, cops, and the U.S. government. Desperate to lose her trackers, Renee lays a full-body kiss on the first gorgeous guy she sees...a kiss that she gets back with a toe-curling vengeance. N.S.A. agent James Axelrod never thought apprehending his suspect would be so easy, and so sinfully arousing...or that he would consider taking her into custody in the privacy of his own bedroom...

Peter Random lost everything when he was outwitted by that goody-goody Renee Jardin. Late in his rent, his job gone, Peter vows he'll never let anyone get close enough to burn him again. So why can't he seem to tell Lori Jamieson and her troubles to hit the road? It isn't just her hot bod and full lips—although those have a magic he can't deny. Something about the damsel in distress makes Peter want to wrap her in his strong arms and prove that a bad boy can be very, very good, especially when it's between the sheets...

At the biotech firm, they call her Thea "I.Q." Foster— "I.Q." for either Intelligence Quotient or Ice Queen, depending. Slipping the Cure into Renee's tote bag was satisfying revenge, but now that the fun's over, Thea sets her sights on a new challenge: sarcastic, secretive Jimmy Scrye. Cracking open his hard shell would be a real game, but Jimmy's more than Thea's match. He's got a few ideas for turning the tables on the brainy scientist...sensual, erotic fantasy ideas that just might change those letters in her name to "Incredible," "Insatiable," and "Quivering with delight"...