I’m going to be discussing a series of books – all part of Rachel Gibson’s Writer Friends series- and, naturally, the summaries for the next books might have spoilers for the previous books: just a brief warning before we start. Also, I may have cursed once or twice because one of the heroes royally pisses me off.
In Sex, Lies & Online Dating, a crime-novelist using online dating to research her next book happens to overlap with an undercover cop on the lookout for a serial-dating, serial killer – Not exactly your average ‘meet-cute’. But somewhere between the suspicious side-eyes, and cover stories and next dates she wasn’t supposed to make, Lucy started to have feelings for Quinn. And Quinn – in the midst of all that faux-dating and checking to make sure Lucy isn’t going to kill him while his back’s turned – begins to have feelings of his own.
Of course, it gets pretty complicated from there, what with Lucy feeling betrayed, Quinn being flummoxed, and serial killer still on the loose, but I enjoyed Quinn & Lucy’s story – their battles post-revelation felt authentic, and a little grovelling never hurt anybody (if it was well-earned). But I think it’s well told and entertaining, with just enough angst to make it believable.
When Clare Wingate finds her fiance in bed with the Sears repair man on her way to her friend’s wedding, she keeps her troubles to herself. Until the reception, where she apparently drinks enough champagne to float a boat in, winds up too drunk to drive home. Her friends book her a room at the hotel, and when she meets an old foe at the bar later that night, they both wind up back in her room, although she has no memory of what they’ve done the next day. Fed up with her poor decision making skills, Clare decides that she’s (I’m) in No Mood For Love, which winds up being an issue when she’s thrown together with said childhood nemesis, Sebastian Vaughn and he has other ideas.
I had major problems with this one from the very beginning – Sebastian seems to want kudos for not sleeping with the intoxicated &/or unconscious Clare, and then, when she wakes up and remembers nothing, he purposefully lies to her about what happened the night before: “He could have set her straight, but flat-out lied just to make her feel worse. And he didn’t feel bad about it. Not even a little.” Ok, cool dude: you sound awesome. A chapter or two later “He could help her out. Clear things up real fast and tell her they hadn’t slept together, but it wasn’t his job to make her life easier.” No, apparently it’s your job to be an asshole. And I know I’m supposed to feel sympathetic to him because his mother recently died, and he’s trying to reconnect with his father, and he’s all insomniac-ish and mid-life-crisis-y, but I don’t. I don’t like him At All. And, of course, he clears things up, but… still: if you’re first instinct is to lie to a woman – who obviously is having a pretty rough day already – about some pretty serious stuff (like whether or not you potentially had sex and/or assaulted her, then I don’t think you’re hero material, so this one gets a pass from me, and I probably would’ve stopped reading the entire series, (since I knew he’d pop up again all happily-ever-after somewhere to piss me off), but I’d already bought the other two books, so I read them anyways.
In the third book – Tangled Up In You, Maddy heads back to the town of Truly to uncover some secrets from her past, and winds up falling for the absolute worst person in the process. Mick Hennessey owns two bars, looks out for his young nephew, and would rather leave the past alone, but when Maddy comes in and starts asking all sorts of questions, she takes that option away from him, and also, apparently, makes it so she’s almost always on his mind.
Add in Mick’s sister Meg, who’s got problems of her own and may know more about their interconnected pasts then she’s letting on, and the rest of the Writer Friends group making random appearances for dress fittings and bar hopping, and you’ve got what I considered the best book of the bunch. Because Mick may be screwed up, but at least he’s honest about it. And Maddie’s got her share of scars too, and when she leads with some misinformation, she at least recognizes that it wasn’t the right thing to do. Besides, I kind of like it when two “I’m never going to fall in love/get married/settle down” types finally run into the one that proves them wrong. I especially like it when they run into someone exactly like themselves.
Lastly, in Not Another Bad Date, there’s poor Adele Harris, a fantasy writer who thinks she may just be cursed with bad dates. And a creepy ex, who likes to leave bits and pieces from their former relationship on her doorstep, literally. (As in, “here, I cut the head off this Darth Vader you gave me for Christmas, I’m going to leave it on your porch now.”) Then when her seemingly perfect, pregnant older sister’s life suddenly falls apart (her husband leaves her for his dental assistant, whose name, I am not joking, is Stormy Winter.), she calls and asks Adele to help her & her teenage daughter move back to their childhood hometown, help them settle in for a few weeks, and she drops everything to go. While she’s there, she runs into Zach Zemaitis, the boy she’d loved and lost (to a witch of a high-school nemesis) and he’d like her to believe that her curse has ended.
It will definitely take more than just his word for her to believe that, and there’s the additional complications of his teenage daughter (who thinks her now-deceased mama was an angel and isn’t interested in having anybody else try to take her place, thank you very much); one of Zach’s friends who also happens to think Adele is pretty damn hot; and Adele’s sister being hospitalized (which extends Adele’s stay indefinitely), (and maybe the ghost of the teenage ex-nemesis?) but what’s a book without a few complications? I liked both Zach and Adele; I liked the more minor characters; I could have done without all the Texas/Football/Rah! Rah! stuff (I’m not a sports person, so it’s like skimming just automatically happens when there’s too much sports talk), and I thought this was a good way to end the series.
I know I’ve read something of Gibson’s that I loved, but my Goodreads is failing me and I can’t recall which one it was. These were all fine contemporary romances, but … I doubt I’m going to search out any of her other series unless somebody I trust tells me they were much better (These books are older, published between 2006-10, although they seem to have been reissued with shmancy new covers). There’s just not enough snap, enough humor, enough kicking ass when appropriate for me to go looking. Plus, I really hated Sebastian. And the fact that they wound up together is still kind of pissing me off.