Product Description
Business takes a back seat to romance when accountant Richard Parker encounters Emily Tate, an advertising executive running a new ad campaign for a sensual new perfume called Sizzle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

vintage Crusie
It seems every author has one--the book they'd rather forget. This one is Crusie's.

Emily Tate is a marketing whiz. She's very good at her job, but has a tendency to go for results and forget about the cost. Then the company hires Richard Parker whose job is to keep the budget under control. Which puts them in direct opposition on Emily's latest perfume marketing campaign.

The chemistry between them sizzles, the ad campaign sizzles, and the perfume itself, thanks to Emily's brilliant idea and leaning on the R&D guy, sizzles (think warming massage oil).

Emily and Richard would have been able to deal with their professional differences except for one problem: Richard doesn't listen.

And that's really the only problem with this novella--Richard doesn't listen, Emily calls him on it, he promises never to do it again, then something comes up, and Richard doesn't listen, rinse, and repeat. Thing is, that's such a realistic problem, I wish there'd been a more dramatic solution to it.

Otherwise, it's vintage Crusie. Great fast-paced, witty dialogue, a wonderful best friend, and, well, sizzle.

It's obviously not Jenny's best work, but I enjoyed it, and am glad I got it, beyond just making my collection complete.

Ridiculously Expensive But Worth Reading If You Can Find It
The whole story is only 92 pages long, so I guess that classifies it as a novella.This is apparently a very early work by her, but even so, all of her classic elements are there - intelligent women, a gorgeous guy, witty dialogue and a sexy romance.

Emily Tate is a brilliant marketer and is in charge of a new perfume campaign.Her last project, though wildly successful, went way over budget so (gorgeous and extremely sexy) Richard Parker has been hired by the firm as a number-cruncher to keep the various projects under budget.Also involved in the story is Emily's best friend/secretary Jane, who's been with her since their school days, knows all the skeletons, and who helps to keep her on track.Needless to say, there is immediate attraction between Emily and Richard, but there are also some major obstacles, such as his stubborness and seemingly inablility to listen to her.

This book mainly consists of dialogue and witty repartee between the various characters. Example:"You're looking very chipper this morning.""Thank you.""Your underpants are on your desk.""What?""The cleaners found them in the conference room and put them on the lost-and-found bulletin board. Real clowns, those cleaners.""Does anybody know?""Absolutely not. I was the first one here. And I only knew they were yours because I bought them for you.""You get a raise.""Thank you. I deserve one. Who was the lucky man?"

I rated this book four stars instead of five because the story is only told from Emily's viewpoint - we never share Richard's thoughts.I guess that that's one of the drawbacks of the short format, and one that isn't present in Ms. Crusie's later books. If you're a fan of Ms. Crusie's writing, then this is one that's definitely worth searching for.If you've never read her before and the cost of the used version is too high for you, then try her in-print books - you're sure to enjoy them too.

Sizzle fizzles...
I didn't realise, when I bought this book,that it is actually a novella- it's only about 90 pages long.I love Crusie's work,but this was thefirst romance that she ever wrote,and it feels it.

It's too short toreally get into the characters or their love affair,and Emily's ideas onhow to make the perfume 'sizzle' sounded a bit strange to me.She had somegood marketing lines (it's the sizzle,not the steak that we are sellinghere)and I liked her character,but I felt all the characters needed abit more time and thought.

It's a fun read,but not a great one,andseeing that it can be hard to get and thus quite pricey,it's not reallyworth it..

Sorry.Don't mean to be negative. I love all her otherother stuff!

Classic Crusie, funny, sexy & smart romance
Emily Tate, a marketing manager who has a heck of time keeping her projects in line with the company's budget, is assigned a partner to keep her spending in line.Even though she makes millions for her company -- it's not enough for them.So they hire Richard Parker, an anal as can be budget advisor to keep her spending on track. She despises him sight unseen.But he's an irritatingly handsome guy who manages to charm his way into her heart.So what's an independent and intelligent woman to do when she learns that the one man who she wants to spend the rest of her life with has an annoying habit of ignoring everything she says?She turns the tables on the oaf and what follows is one of the sexist, smartest and wittiest little books I've ever read. And it most definitely lives up to its title! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Crazy for Crusie's stories!
I've been onJennifer Crusie-kick for the last few months, after I read one of her novels for the first time, and I think she's now one of my favorite authors. This book -- two novels in one volume -- is a great buy for the price.These are two of Crusie's earlier novels, and they are a little different from novels like BET ME, but the story is just as good.

The best things about Jennifer Crusie's novels:

1.The heroines aren't rich, pampered, spoiled, blonde heiresses trying to make their lives useful.

2. The women aren't skinny size two or four stick figures withcompulsive eating and exercise habits.

3. No one is obsessed with money, inheritances, status, or murder.

4. The stories are about real, complex relationships between families, friends and lovers.

5. There is real romance, even for women who aren't rich or perfect.

The first novel in this edition, CRAZY FOR YOU, is about Quinn McKenzie, and her realization that she does not want to live the same life and the same safe routine every day for the rest of her life.Her desire to make one small change in her life -- adopting a dog, even though her apartment does not allow them -- snowballs out of control.Quinn and her friends realize how many people have stopped noticing and appreciating things that are right in front of them, including themselves and loved ones, and many are inspired to try to make their lives and experiences feel new again.

The struggles of Quinn and her friends touch some important issues related to love, marriage, relationships, committment, appreciation, and loneliness.

TELL ME LIES is about a woman named Maddie Faraday.Maddie's cheating husband (cheating in more ways than one, and more people than just her) and his subsequent murder prompt her to shake up her life and provide her small time with something to talk about as she decides to start telling the truth to everyone, shed her "nice-girl" image, and make her own happiness a priority.

Neither of these books is really as good as BET ME or FAKING IT, in my opinion, but I greatly enjoyed both, and you can see a bit of Crusie's story-telling evolution.These stories are definitely different than the stories of the single, independent girls in the other Crusie novels that I have read.
... Read more

Product Description

"Wonderful, fresh, funny, tender, outrageous..." says Booklist of Jennifer Crusie, whose wry, witty romantic comedies have made her a New York Times bestseller.This bundle includes four ferociously funny, sexy romances, Getting Rid of Bradley, Strange Bedpersons, What the Lady Wants and Charlie All Night.

Customer Reviews (7)

Humor But Little 'Contemporary' Romance
Contained in this Jennifer Cruise bundle:

Getting Rid Of Bradley - 1.5 Stars
Lucy Savage just got divorced. Her newly ex-husband didn't even bother showing up for the final signing. Her controlling, though well-intentioned, sister is ready to remove body parts off the man, but Lucy is feeling more confused than heartbroken. She wants answers for why her husband was making time with a blond bimbo in their house. Over lunch, she tries to explain to her sister that she's okay but ready to take control over her own life...as soon as she gets answers from Bradley for why he did what he did.

Across the restaurant, two cops working on an embezzlement case overhear Lucy talking about Bradley and officer Zack Warren realizes that the tip he and his partner got to show up at this dive to nab Bradley the embezzler just went live. He confronts Lucy as she's leaving the restaurant...and then bullets are flying and he's getting beat up by the woman who's life he just saved.

Lucy feels nothing but empowered as she realizes she's successfully defended herself against a mugging and takes off after the police show up to grab the wretched scruffy guy in leather who put his hands on her. She feels so empowered, in fact, she decides to dye her hair. Blond was a mistake, so she tries for brunette. Just as she's realizing that the attempted dye job left her hair dead and...well...green...the doorbell rings and the thug she'd beat up is standing there...with his policeman's shield in hand. Oops.

Today Lucy got divorced, shot at, manhandled, dyed her hair green, and beat up a cop. She isn't having a good day.

What started out as a sort of loony but amusing premise was quickly strained by an anorexic plot that pushed beyond the boundaries of plausibility or credulity and by characters that lacked more than superficial development. Zack is the Peter Pan who equates committed relationships with death and Lucy is the pushover who is so intent on remaking herself she's willfully blind to common sense.

Though I prefer more three dimensional characters and found Zack's abrupt about-face on relationships as soon as he spends time with Lucy a bit hard to swallow, I honestly liked him. He's pretty uncomplicated and generally a nice guy - and any male who still wants a woman with ugly green hair is worth something. His character and his reaction to things is where all the humor in this book lays for me. I didn't find him believable, and he's pretty two dimensional, but I did generally enjoy him.

What really turned me off this book was Lucy. I found her character to be so irredeemable - between her lack of common sense and worse, lack of intelligence, her absurdly obtuse reactions even after things started blowing up, and her apparent lack of self preservation, I couldn't figure out for the life of me how Zack could even tolerate her, let alone love her. I actually found her distasteful as a character and difficult to read when paired with Zack.

Unfortunately, for a book like this to work for me, I have to like both leads. I so disliked Lucy that what would have been a silly and unrealistic but entertaining light romantic comedy, Getting Rid of Bradley, was ruined for me.

Strange Bedpersons - 3 Stars
Originally published in 1994, there's little about this quirky romance about the ladder-climbing yuppie Republican lawyer Nick and the hippie, commune-raised, militant-feminist liberal Tess that doesn't feel almost painfully dated. That being said, Crusie pens a fast-paced plot that delves more deeply than I'd anticipated into the potential disaster of a relationship between two people who love each other, but who are so different they will never see eye to eye.

Nick, despite his career-loving little heart, is a fun character who is actually pretty forgiving and able to compromise, though he does have a rather vanilla predilection for sex in bed. He's pretty darn forgiving of some pretty radical behavior and recognizes before Tess does that some compromise is in order, yet he still manages to mess up a little as he presses his own sense of fashion off onto the bohemian Tess and tries to wear down some of her rougher edges before he realizes that he's got to decide to accept her as is or lose her. I found Tess harder to like, though I did respect her commitment to her values. Still, her uncompromising attitude and selfish judgments of those who don't share her militant views were off-putting through most of the book.

Strange Bedpersons started abruptly, too abruptly, with Nick banging on Tess' door and Tess closing it in his face, the two of them obviously already sharing a history. It took a little while to get the story on their history, so the opening of the book seemed jarring and left me feeling like I missed something. It made it hard to get into and I had to struggle a bit to 'catch up.' That did subside a bit as the story progressed, though the other issues - the dated feeling and my issues with Tess - didn't. Still, I can't argue Crusie's ability to nail witty, fast-moving dialogue and touch on human truisms with humor and intelligence. I just wish that prior to republication, this story had gone through a bit of a brush up to make it more socially and culturally timely and not quite so anachronistic to contemporary romance.

What the Lady Wants - 4 Stars
Mitchell Peatwick Kincaid is a stockbroker, but a fondness for Sam Spade and a mild feeling of discontent with his job convinced him to get a private investigator license, and about a year ago, a bet with his boss and some friends - and a lot of alcohol - goaded him into leaving his prosperous career with his prestigious firm, putting the stuff from his monied life into storage, and taking on private detecting as a career under the name Mitchell Peatwick. And if he can get his private investigation firm into the black in a year, he'll win that $10,000 bet.

Twelve months of private investigating, however, taught Mitch two things: everybody lies, and real life private investigation work doesn't resemble anything remotely similar to Sam Spade's life. Until SHE walked in.

SHE is Mae Belle Sullivan and she's looking for a PI who isn't all that bright so she can lie to him. Not for kicks, but to get help finding answers following the death of her uncle. Answers that will save Mae from financial ruin and explain what her reprehensible old fart of a relative was doing with all the art and keepsakes that have been disappearing from his house for the past few months. An overheard conversation pointed her in the direction of her uncle's journal, but it's been missing since he died and Mae's starting to get frantic to find it. So she lies. And she uses her feminine wiles. And she pays Mitch Peatwick just about everything in her bank account to investigate the murder of her uncle. Who was in his seventies, had a heart condition and a twenty-five year old mistress, and died in her bed. Mae's fairly certain it wasn't murder.

Mitch knows he's being lied to by the delicious-looking Mae Belle, but her retainer pushes him into the black and secures his bet...and anything is better than trailing cheating spouses, so he takes her case. There are just a couple of problems for them both. Mitch isn't anywhere near as slow as Mae had hoped, and as more and more clues start to pile up, her uncle's death starts to look more and more like an actual murder - even to Mae.

With a quirky cast of primary and secondary characters and a twisting, rollicking plot that includes suspense, mystery, romance, and comedy, What the Lady Wants delivers a lot of charm and a few good hours of light entertainment. Originally published in 1995, the story is a little worn around the edges and has a bit of a dated patina to it, but not so much that it detracts from the story as in some of Crusie's books. It's more like a faint scent on the air than a bat upside the head. Noticeable, but not painful.

Mitch is a fun character, and quicker than he looks. Which is probably a good thing. I'm dating myself here, but he reminded me a lot of Magnum PI or Rick Simon from Simon & Simon - a bit cynical about life, a bit sloppy on the outside but sharp and thorough when he needed to be. Mae was endearing. Intelligent and kind, with a streak of independence a mile wide and a determination that is formidable. She's a bit stubborn when she needs to be, but not so cold as to be unappealing as a person. She cares about the people she loves and takes on the responsibility of caring for them, as needed. Together they made a good couple, and their banter was one of the high points of the book.

Crusie excels at quickly paced plots with quirky characters and a lot of witty, intelligent, and sarcastic banter. It's what keeps me coming back to her when I want or need some brain candy. I'd love to see this story get a bit of a modernized polish to clear away the dated patina, but even as it stands, I liked it quite a bit.

Charlie All Night - 3.5 Stars
When you're the go-to girl at the radio station and you're producing the number one drive time show in the area, you've got a lot of responsibility and your future is looking bright. When the talent of that show dumps you, then two months later fires you from the show, you're bright future starts to look more like flames from a crash and burn. Allie McGuffey is feeling the heat from those flames after her radio personality ex-boyfriend Mark dumps her as producer and the station puts her on a new overnight time slot. Pushed from drive time to overnight is humiliating. Pushed there by her ex-boyfriend with his supercilious attitude and delusions of competency is even worse.

Putting on a good face just leads to another crisis as a mad dash to the nearest bar/restaurant with her ex hot on her heels forces Allie into uncharted waters. She picks up the first non-suit wearing male she can find and desperately tries to act like she's perfectly okay while her insides are still quaking. Though the rugged man she clings to is obviously surprised by her blatant come on, he doesn't sell her out, which makes him a hero in Allie's book.

Charlie Tenniel is a bit of a bounce around. He doesn't stay in one place too long, doesn't limit himself to doing one thing for his life, either. His wanderlust is a constant disappointment for his socially formidable father. His brother, radio personality Ten Tenniel, was more the man his father wanted him to be, but look where that got him - a drug habit and escape from prosecution courtesy of their father's connections. Charlie wasn't going to go out like that. He was, however, going to take the job his father wanted him to take as a favor to the station owner, an old family friend. An anonymous tip claims knowledge of a drug ring opperating from the station and Charlie's been conscripted to chase down the responsible party. He just wants to fly under the radar for the six weeks or so he plans to stay in town, so having Allie pressed up against him is just fine, but when he realizes she's his new producer and intends to make him a star, he's just as adamant that she doesn't.

His position would probably be a lot stronger if he could just stay out of her bed.

While the premise of Charlie All Night is a bit of a stretch and the actions of Allie and Charlie seem more than a little irresponsible both sexually and professionally, I can't argue that the story itself is light, fun entertainment with plenty of endearing moments. I enjoyed the banter and romantic development between Allie and Charlie. Crusie does banter and endearing really well and it's definitely in evidence here. There's not much to the plot, though, and with an original publication date of 1996, there's a dated feel to both the technology and equipment described in the station and a definite pre-Monica Lewinsky air of sexual permissiveness in the work place that didn't translate well for me.

So long as you don't take the book too seriously, or expect much in the way of depth of plot or character, there's still a lot of entertainment to be had from the story of Charlie and Allie, two people who won't be poster children for sexual harassment litigation any time soon, but who still managed to make me chuckle.

Originally reviewed by title for One Good Book Deserves Another.

Let this one pass you by
I have read some of this author's books before, and some are better than others. The first and second were just ok, and I could not even finish the third. Good buy (4 for less than 10) but not very good reading.

Great value
Includes:
Getting Rid of Bradley
Strange Bedpersons
What the Lady Wants
Charlie All Night

amusing, but not that great
First of all, I guess this is a chick book (excuse the non-PC comment), but it was enough of a bargain that I thought I'd try a Kindle sample. The first chapter or so was funny enough and an interesting plot so that I bought the full book. Certainly could not read it right through, but when I finished the first one, it was enjoyable enough. I read a couple other books, then went back and read the next, and so forth.

She is funny and writes very well, and had clever plots, but the formula was far too predictable to make me want to read any more.

The last book got very tiresome with the two lead characters having sex, fighting, having more sex on and on and on, without the plot developing very much at all. And, I was fascinated at how many of the characters kept "snorting" every time somebody made a funny crack. It began to seem like a large pig farm.

Anyhow, amusing books but you have to be an aficionado to keep reading her stuff. I guess I ain't one. Snort.

A great bargain!
I've read a number of Crusie novels, and was delighted to see this bundle of books.4 books for under $10?Not a bad deal at all!

I have to admit, reading four Crusie novels in a row somewhat makes her formula stand out, but it's that same formula that makes me enjoy her as an author, so I'm not sure that's a complaint.

The first and last books in this bundle were definitely my favorites, but the middle two were also quite enjoyable.If you're a fan, I recommend checking it out.But watch out, there are some laugh out loud moments.

... Read more

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Customer Reviews (40)

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I planned on liking this book because it came highly recomended from a friend with similar tastes, but it didn't really work out. The writing is good, the characters are good, most of the humor works; as long as a book can meet these qualities I tend to really enjoy it, but there was a problem with the pacing. It's as if three short stories were intertwined into one novel and because of that there is a lot of jumping around between plots without much substance and it just comes off as looong. Everytime a scene changed I was stunned that the first day had YET to end.

I have no patients. If you do, read the book, it's not actually bad.

A bit of a miss... but overall good
I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book, and I'm enjoying it but one part... TOO MANY CHARACTERS!Each character is so different and has all these little quirks and their own lives, and the story just bounces from sister to sister.It's hard to keep up with all of them and their interactions.Each chapter should be a different sister, not each of them crammed into one.I'm thinking about taking notes as I read, like I do in class, so I can keep track of everyone!

Simply Charming
I'll just say at the start that I really enjoyed this book.It's inevitable that "The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes" would draw comparisons to Jennifer Crusie's "Dogs and Goddesses", as the two books share a three author format and both have a supernatural bent.Though Dogs was written last, I read it first and therefore had very low expectations for Miss Fortunes.But was I ever pleasantly surprised.Where Dogs was contrived and ridiculous and not at all an enjoyable read, Miss Fortunes was believable, delightful, and a whole lot of fun.The supernatural elements (and I'm not usually a fan of this particular genre) do require you to suspend believe.All three sisters are reluctant witches who've each inherited unique powers, from transmutation, to telekinesis, to shapeshifting.However, the story is told in such a way that it seems quite natural and easy to go along with.And it's easy to relate to these three women who exist in the modern world and want nothing more than to blend in and be normal.I particular enjoyed Mare's story and her desire to be with the man she loves yet fearing he won't accept who she really is or who their children might be should her magic pass along to them.But all three sister's tales were enjoyable.Another reviewer complained that the format is too predictable with one sister first meeting her true love, then the next, and the next.While it is true that the plot largely does follow that fashion, I didn't feel that took away from the story.Each woman's tale was unique with issues and emotions to deal with that differed from their sister's.If anything I found myself looking forward to seeing how the next sister's first meeting, first kiss, etc. with their man would pan out.There were times when I couldn't put the book down.I stayed up late unto the night because I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen and, when I did, I found myself wishing I hadn't reached the end.Really this book was quite charming. That's the one word that keeps popping into my head.It's truly a fun read.

Bizarre
I find Crusie to be a very funny author.Her sense of humor is very much like mine.I was given this book by someone who knew I liked to read her books.

Well... this book was not a favorite.It did have some of Crusie's characteristic humor but the plot line of the deranged Aunt Xan trying to steal her nieces magical powers was just a little too weird.I am a Harry Potter fan, so it's not the wizard/witchcraft idea that bothered me.That aspect made almost no sense whatsoever.

I liked the story being told from the different sisters' perspectives (as well as the aunt's).But, there were times where the whole story just did not make any sense.I had to go back several times and reread parts of chapters just to try to understand something that happened.These books are my 'mental break' from working on a PhD, they should not involve closer reading then my doctoral research materials!

All in all, not really a very good story.The intermittent bizarre mishaps the sisters experienced with their magic (as well as the occasional humorous one-liners) were the only things that actually made me finish the book. I am not familiar with the other authors, but I have read other Crusie collaborative works and they were much better (Agnes & the Hitman).Maybe it was the influence of the other authors that brought this book down.Regardless, this is not one I suggest reading.

Great mix of talent
I really enjoyed this book, there was a great mix of talent combined in this store of three sisters. Each with there on issues and Loves. ... Read more

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Product Description
Liz Danger is a ghost writer who's been traveling around the midwest writing autobiographies for various and sundry semi-famous wingnuts and making a decent living at it.But in March of her thirty-third year, she does something out of character: she detours south from her nice straight drive from Philadelphia to Chicago to meet her current client--Anemone Patterson, a seventy-something, semi-famous beauty queen--and goes back to her home town of Birney, OH, to drop off a giant purple bear at her mother's house.In the fifteen years since she's left Birney, she's communicated with her mother mainly by sending her bears for every holiday and flying her mother to wherever she is every Christmas, but this time she goes home.Once there, she's picked up for speeding by the new cop in town (Vince), delayed for a week by the breakdown of her car, drafted into the wedding of a woman she barely knows and doesn't like (Lavender Blue), seduced without protest into the new cop's bed,and arrested for murder (of the bride).Other than that, it's a pretty good week. ... Read more

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ASIN: B0027F5P8ITitle: Don't Look DownPublication date: 2006 ... Read more

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Sophie Dempsey wants to help her sister film a video and then get out of Temptation, Ohio. Mayor Phin Tucker wants to play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. But when Sophie and Phin meet, they both get more than they want. Gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, vehicular abuse of a corpse, and slightly perverse but excellent sex: all hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble, and in love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

tempted in Temptation
This was a light-spirited, fun read.It was a down-to-earth story about a romantic relationship between normal people.It wasn't a romance masquerading as an epic.It was a good story, entertaining and interesting.It kept my attention, and it was sometimes difficult to put down.I enjoyed it, and I recommend it if you are looking for just a normal, entertaining story with some romance included.
... Read more

Product Description
Liz Danger is a ghost writer who's been traveling around the midwest writing autobiographies for various and sundry semi-famous wingnuts and making a decent living at it.But in March of her thirty-third year, she does something out of character: she detours south from her nice straight drive from Philadelphia to Chicago to meet her current client--Anemone Patterson, a seventy-something, semi-famous beauty queen--and goes back to her home town of Birney, OH, to drop off a giant purple bear at her mother's house.In the fifteen years since she's left Birney, she's communicated with her mother mainly by sending her bears for every holiday and flying her mother to wherever she is every Christmas, but this time she goes home.Once there, she's picked up for speeding by the new cop in town (Vince), delayed for a week by the breakdown of her car, drafted into the wedding of a woman she barely knows and doesn't like (Lavender Blue), seduced without protest into the new cop's bed,and arrested for murder (of the bride).Other than that, it's a pretty good week. ... Read more

Product Description
Liz Danger is a ghost writer who's been traveling around the midwest writing autobiographies for various and sundry semi-famous wingnuts and making a decent living at it.But in March of her thirty-third year, she does something out of character: she detours south from her nice straight drive from Philadelphia to Chicago to meet her current client--Anemone Patterson, a seventy-something, semi-famous beauty queen--and goes back to her home town of Birney, OH, to drop off a giant purple bear at her mother's house.In the fifteen years since she's left Birney, she's communicated with her mother mainly by sending her bears for every holiday and flying her mother to wherever she is every Christmas, but this time she goes home.Once there, she's picked up for speeding by the new cop in town (Vince), delayed for a week by the breakdown of her car, drafted into the wedding of a woman she barely knows and doesn't like (Lavender Blue), seduced without protest into the new cop's bed,and arrested for murder (of the bride).Other than that, it's a pretty good week. ... Read more

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Welcome to Temptation (Aasne Vigesaa, Laura Grafton, Jill Sovis):
Sophie Dempsey wants to help her sister film a video and then get out of Temptation, Ohio. Mayor Phin Tucker wants to play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. But when Sophie and Phin meet, they both get more than they want. Gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, vehicular abuse of a corpse, and slightly perverse but excellent sex: all hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble, and in love.

Fast Women (Sandra Burr, Laura Grafton, Jill Sovis):
Nell Dysart's in trouble. Her divorce is 18 months old, she's been sleepwalking through life, and the best job she can get is with a detective agency that specializes in relationship work. Determined to turn her life around, Nell flings herself into making McKenna Investigations a better place. On day one, she uncovers an embezzler. On day two, she turns up bribery. On day three, she has sex with the wrong man. On day four, she steals a dog. On day five, her boss tries to fire her . . . And fails miserably.

Faking It (Aasne Vigesaa, Laura Grafton, Melissa Coates):
Reformed art forger Tilda Goodnight reluctantly joins forces with semi-reformed con man Davy Dempsey to steal a dubious painting and several million embezzled dollars from a lethal widow named Clea who has targeted a mild-mannered art collector as her next dearly departed. Complications include her sister, the female impersonator; his best friend, the reformed cat burglar; a recidivist embezzler named Rabbit; a hit man, some lousy sex, and a juke box. Trouble ensues... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Welcome to Temptation
Received and looks to be in excellent condition but have not used yet.Since this is an audio book - impossible to rate except that it "looks" fine, but the test is how it sounds.

funny romantic cute
Three funny stories of "star crossed" lovers who have a long road to travel to realize their true love is right in front of them. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (17)

Coffee at Luke's
Fun read.I loved the different authors take on specific people and things.Gilmore Girls is a great series.It was great to keep the fun coming with the book.

Interesting
The book shares different points of view and analyses the show and it's characters. It's really interesting if you're a Gilmore Girls fan like me.

An Excellent Companion for Any Gilmore Girls Fan
Coffee at Luke's is just a wonderful book for any Gilmore Girls fan. The essay's range from though provoking, to just interesting analyzations of the show and the parts that make it up. It's not to watch and think of.

This book is fantastic!
Coffee at Lukes: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest is a PHENOMENAL book. The change of pace from essay to essay, author to author is fantastic. It definately helps me get my "Gilmore Girls-fix" when I can't be watching the show...

I've read this book from cover to cover...many times. I love the essay "Reading, Rory, and Relationships".

This book is amazing. I definately recommend it to any fan of the show! =P

A Gilmore Girl Treat
This book was enjoyable to read.It offered many insights to the show that I would have never even thought about. It makes you appreciate the show and its wit even more! ... Read more

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One of fiction's most well-loved novels, this 19th-century classic continues to capture the hearts of contemporary readers with its notions of marriage, dating, and romance. Leading authors in the area of women's literature and romance contribute to this fresh collection of essays on everything from Lydia's scandalous marriage to George Wickham to the female-dominated Bennett household and the emphasis placed on courtship and marriage. Contributors include Jo Beverly, Alesia Holliday, Mercedes Lackey, Joyce Millman and Jill Winters. This compilation is an excellent companion for both those new to Jane Austen and well-versed Austen-philes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Chatting over coffee with the girls
Reading this book of essays is much like sitting down to discuss Pride and Prejudice with a group of friends over coffee. Not every essay is a winner. Some cause laughing out loud (what if the characters in the book had been equipped with cell phones, indeed). A few sound like English class assignments written the night before a deadline. There is something worthwhile in all of them, though. This is a good book to take traveling since the reader can pick it up, read a brief essay or two, and come back to it later. One reason P & P remains a top seller is that each generation sees the book with a fresh perspective--as displayed nicely in Flirting with Pride and Prejudice.

Unworthyof Austen--or Crusie
It is a truth universally acknowledged that magazines should be judged by their best contents and collections and journals by their worst, as they are not under the same pressure to meet deadlines and fill pages. The worst here is Mercedes Lackey who in the absence of anything useful or interesting to say has inserted an advertisement for her own writings, but the competition was pretty severe, including Adam Roberts who has used his pages to defend simply indefensible conduct on the part of certain (other) academic critics. Crusie, an excellent writer herself, should not have signed off as editor to a collection containing these articles. Jane Austen wrote out P&P at least three times longhand, and sweated off at least a quarter of her text before it went to a publisher. I'm not sure some of these authors did more than type once and hit the spellcheck.
All of which said, Jo Beverley's "Gold Diggers of 1813" is first-rate work--a neat summary for beginners of the dilemma of an Austen heroine. It deserves to be reprinted in better company. Until it is, this one will stay on the shelves.

Smart Pop (so true!)
This collection of dates with Jane Austen has something for everyone, and the diversity of the essays points to the continuing popularity of "Pride and Prejudice".Several writers examine Austen as The Mother of All Chick-lit, leading the reader to wonder at the esteem in which Austen is held, while the thousands of books she spawned languish in their pink ghettos. Several writers examine details of Austen's world, while others freely enter in to it, and still others drag her into the 21st century.

I don't know when I've enjoyed a collection of essays so much.A few of the writers I've read elsewhere, but many are new to me.Not all of the twenty-five perspectives offered will appeal equally, but all are well-written, informative, and amusing.And they'll all send you back to the original, thinking.

Fun, but light
Misled by the marketing, I was hoping to find this a volume of accessible critical analysis of Jane Austen's influence on modern fiction.Boy, was I wrong.

Only two of the essays were really thought-provoking: Lauren Baratz-Logsted's essay on Austen's heirs in chick-lit and Karen Joy Fowler's discussion of Austen's modern audience.However, I also enjoyed Jo Beverly's interesting exploration of women's economic prospects in Austen's period, which brought Elizabeth Bennet's budget into modern terms.

Lawrence Watt-Evans' essay on war in Austen (or the absence of war in Austen) was very thorough if somewhat out-of-place.

Aside from these stand-outs, the other essays are, for the most part, musings on Austen's relevance to the authors' personal lives -- light, amusing fare.Some of them are rewritings or sequels of part of Austen's own work, and I can't evaluate these: I found them tiresome, but perhaps that's just because they weren't what I wanted from the book.

Patchy, but a nice introduction to a kind of critical interpretation
It is a truth, universally acknowledged that Jane Austen's popularity will continue for a long time to come. With another version of Pride and Prejudice on the screens and the Bollywood version, Bride and Prejudice recently released she will continue in the foreground for a while yet. The writing of a new type of critical literature to allow new readers to take new perspectives on her work is therefore timely, and this collection is not too bad either.

I have some reservations on it from the start. I found Jennifer Cruise to be mostly quite good in her (short) introductions to each chapter, but was occassionally annoyed by her blithe ignorance. At one point, for instance, she insisted that Jane Austen 'scholars' all thought of Jane as 'never having a thought that wasn't pure"......Excuse me?! Austen scholars who have studied her letters know indeed, despite Cassandra's heavy editing and likely huge destruction of her sisters Letters, that Jane Austen had many thoughts that were not indulgent and pure.

There were 25 Essays in here, of which 5 were fan fiction or continuations, and at least 2 others might as well have been. There was one quite fun script for a Bennet/bacherlorette reality show. But for the most part these ones just didn't interest me greatly and I skimmed through them.

Beth Kendricks first item sets the tone of the book, relating the choosing of a husband (Elizabeth's burden as a single woman) to modern day choices. For the most part I enjoyed this, but one thing I felt she could have mentioned was that under property laws of the time not only was Elizabeth without money, but any she had became the property of her husband. Choosing a husband was more than a simple process of hit and miss as it is now - it really was for life.

Jennifer O'connells next essay struck me with the same issues - of course her friends wouldn't give Charlotte the advice not to marry Mr Collins - Charlotte was competing for husbands with the 5 Bennet Girls, she also had her younger sister following behind. Mr Collins had money or at least the living at Lady de bourghs, and would be rich once Mr Bennet died, and he was not cruel, just a fool. So for Elizabeth to persist in advising her otherwise was against Charlottes best interests. Still it was salient advice for modern readers

The two best essays, I thought were Jane Austen and History and these are highly recommnended. Jo Beverly gives a very interesting and readable outline of just why there were Gold Diggers in 1813 (the year this book was published) and what the income meant for the Bennet family. Also pointing out that Men were gold diggers too. Beverly pointed out Mr Wickham was a gold digger but interestingly she didn't point out that Darcy's cousin whom Elizabeth met at Rosings was also a gold digger - he had to be as he had no money himself - the difference between himself and Wickham is that he had ethical standards.

Lawrence Watt-Evans also wrote an excellent essay on 'a world at war' pointing out the conflict in dates. The book was first written around 1797 and revised in 1802, but revised again somewhere between 1809 and 1812 and published in 1813. The action takes part over a year from June through to the following june, however the three dates in the book do not correspond to two consecutive years. Watt-Evans outlines the two major arguments from R W Chapman (1811-1812) and PBS Andrews who settles for a period 1797-1802 (saying that it was started in 1797 but the latter half revised substantially in 1802 thus the descrepancy in dates and the small section at the end which talks about Peace (referring to Peace in Amiens). This is a great small outline of the research of these dates, but I think he would have done well - given that his article is about war with the French to have read John Brehan and Clive Caplan;s Article in Persuasions #14 which convincingly argues that the date this was set is in actuality more likely 1794/5 because after that date no Militia were billeted out of season in inland towns of Britain as barracks were built for them. The key element of Pride and Prejudice, the billeting of the Militia could not happened after 1795. There is a great deal more convincing edidence in this article and I strongly recommend it

Elisabeth Fairchild wrote a reasonable review of Pride and Prejudice in Chick lit but I found it unnecessarily confusing as she referred to onions, broccoli to try to clarify them....yeah, confusing isn't it? I just couldn't read Adam Roberts article about the Masturbating Critic, it just was too self indulgent. I also found Elizabeth Baratz-Logsted's article about who has Pride and who has prejudice unncessarily naive. Surely the themes of Pride and of Prejudice relate to all characters at one time or another?

I loved Jennifer Reillys analogy of Pride and Prejudice with Fiddler on the Roof - Masterful! I also really enjoyed Laura Resnick's take on Bride and Prejudice - I would only add that the opening number in this movie (reflecting the sedate country dance in the novel) is a hugely ironic moment by the director and Well done to her, the movie was great by the way.

I guess I could go on, but the only one I will mention in passing here is Erin Daileys short peice in the form of a questionnaire - I didn't think I would like it, and I don't generally find these amusing, but I loved her questions - they have a great modern hilariousness to them for instance, "The guy you liked dumped you because his friend told him to, now he is suddenly interested in you again.....what do you do? I mean when you put it like that don't Bingley and Darcy sound callow?

So the theme of this book is bringing Austen to the modern reader and I think this book does it more than averagely well. There is really no way that you can translate her work from one century to another without loosing something. So these various angles on either explaining it or interpreting it for the modern reader are varied in approach and in success. However I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is interested in Austen. A pretty good attempt. ... Read more

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an interwoven paranormal story written by three fantastic writers about three magical sisters!theres magic in the night...... ... Read more

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Liz Danger is a ghost writer who's been traveling around the midwest writing autobiographies for various and sundry semi-famous wingnuts and making a decent living at it.But in March of her thirty-third year, she does something out of character: she detours south from her nice straight drive from Philadelphia to Chicago to meet her current client--Anemone Patterson, a seventy-something, semi-famous beauty queen--and goes back to her home town of Birney, OH, to drop off a giant purple bear at her mother's house.In the fifteen years since she's left Birney, she's communicated with her mother mainly by sending her bears for every holiday and flying her mother to wherever she is every Christmas, but this time she goes home.Once there, she's picked up for speeding by the new cop in town (Vince), delayed for a week by the breakdown of her car, drafted into the wedding of a woman she barely knows and doesn't like (Lavender Blue), seduced without protest into the new cop's bed,and arrested for murder (of the bride).Other than that, it's a pretty good week. ... Read more

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Jennifer Crusie Collection (Crazy for You, Tell Me Lies, Welcome to Temptation, Faking It) in mass market paperback edition ... Read more