"Enjoyable Read with an Unusual Heroine"

Colleen Collins has been a favorite of mine since I read her wonderful Love and Laughter books: RIGHT CHEST/WRONG NAME and RIGHT CHAPEL/WRONG GROOM.These two books are on my keeper shelf and I buy copies whenever I see them to give to friends. Why? Because Collins is the Queen of Word Play and gives wonderful new twists to trite phrases, plus the books are hilarious. So, when I saw her latest, TONGUE- TIED for Temptation I couldn't wait to read it.

TONGUE-TIEDhas a wonderful heroine in Robin Lee. Robin is a stutterer who avoids situations where she has to speak in public. The book opens with the worst day of Robin's life, when she is humiliated in a college class by her inability to speak. She not only leaves the class but also drops out of school. To top off her horrible day, one of the women students who witnessed her debacle drops into the diner where Robin has been pressed into waiting tables. Seeing a look of pity in the woman's eyes, Robin plants a big kiss on a hapless customer, as she wants the woman to think a man loves her even if she stutters. Robin is hoping the guy would play along, which he does with great zest. After the mind-melding kiss Robin discovers that her 'victim' is Johnny Dayton, a guy who Robin has had a crush on since childhood.

Johnny was the small town bad boy from the wrong side of town who made good and left town. What Robin doesn't know is that Johnny made very good indeed and is actually John Dayton of OpticPower.

What follows is a tale that combines many favorite romantic elements including e-mail letters between Johnny and Robin, when they don't realize each other's identity. It is clear this pair belongs together and the journey to their discovery of love was fun and entertaining. I would have been happy to have read about this couple in a longer form novel that could have explored their very interesting psyches more.

While not as hilarious as the earlier books, TONGUE-TIED was amusing and the couple is worth the price of the book. While off the store shelves now, this one can still be ordered from e-Harlequin or Amazon and is definitely worth the trouble of finding it.

Reviewed by Linda Hurst
Posted November 10, 2002

Summary

Although Robin Lee isn't a woman of many words, she's definitely a woman of action! First, she kissed a sexy stranger at the diner, and that stranger turned out to be her childhood sweetheart, Johnny Dayton. Then she started a very stimulating email relationship with "jpd," a wealthy CEO. Suddenly she has two men after her. Only little did she guess they are one and the same.