Stuck with You

The Hero: Lawyer Ross Bennett who's intelligent and sinfully handsome. He regards Paige Hart as a worthy adversary as she's just as smart, not to mention pretty.

The Heroine: Attractive lawyer Paige Hart who is very family oriented. She had her heart broken when she was in college and had a very bad experience with a divorce attorney thus she regards Ross Bennett as a snake, albeit a very charming yet still lethal one.

The Plot: Paige Hart and Ross Bennett couldn’t stand each other. Lawyers on opposite sides of a divorce case, there was nothing but bad blood between them... until a courthouse bombing threw them together. Exposed to the same rare and little-understood Tibetan Concupiscence Virus, the two archenemies were quarantined for seven days in one hospital room. As if that weren’t bad enough, the virus’s main side effect was to wreak havoc on human hormones. Paige and Ross found themselves irresistibly drawn to one another. Succumbing to their wildest desires, they swore it must be a temporary bug-induced attraction, but even after they parted ways, they couldn’t seem to forget each other. Which begged the question: Had the lustful litigators contracted the disease after all? Or had they been acting under the influence of another fever altogether – the love bug?

My Verdict: This is the first novel by Trish Jensen that I read and I find it very engaging. It's the usual battle of the sexes book but a lot funnier as their verbal exchanges are wittily written and there's palpable chemistry between the two main characters.

Also, aside from the lovable hero and heroine, there are endearing characters like Nick Hart, Paige's brother who has issues to settle with the lovely Rachel, Nick and Paige's doctor. There's the entire amusing Hart clan too whose members include a geeky cousin, a kleptomaniac aunt, a military dad and a very chatty sister who has a very reserved twin.

All in all, this book is one enjoyable read. I enjoyed the author's writing style so much that now I'm looking for more Trish Jensen (who I found out to be a recipient of Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award) novels.

Fat Tuesday

The Plot
Burke Basile is a cop with nothing left to lose. Responsible for his partner’s death, his marriage and his career over, he focuses on his nemesis, Pinkie Duvall, a flamboyant attorney who helps killers evade justice. Burke’s shocking revenge centers around kidnapping Remy, the lawyer’s trophy wife. But Burke hasn’t planned on the electric attraction he’ll feel for this desperate woman, who rose from the slums of New Orleans to marry a man she can never love. Nor could he have ever predicted the fierce duel that will explode amid the Mardi Gras madness, as the clock ticks toward midnight on Fat Tuesday – when all masks are stripped away, and Burke must confront his own ugly secret.

My verdict
I first read a Sandra Brown novel when I was in college and from the moment I started reading “Exclusive,” I became her instant fan. This isn’t one of my favorite books by the said author though as I hate the heroine. Remy is too submissive to her husband. I understand she’s doing this to protect her sister but come on, can anyone be that spineless? Also, I find her boring. Someone who has beauty but lacks substance to make the reader identify or empathize with her.

It’s still a good read though as the narrative is fast-paced, albeit predictable (the attraction between hero and heroine and their ending up together).

But if there’s something to adore in this book, it would be Gregory, the gay “drama queen” who really made me laugh with his whines and quips, especially in the scene where he helped Burke kidnap Remy. He’s just so funny!

The Quickie with a Longtime, Indelible Consequences

James Patterson's The Quickie is one entertaining read. It was so gripping that I had to stay all night to finish reading it.

It tells the story of Lauren, a woman with a perfect marriage and a great job. But this perfect world came crashing down on her when she saw her husband with another woman. Hurt, angry and hellbent on getting her revenge, she decided to engage in an affair of her own - a quickie - with a colleague.

Her night of passion, however, became a terrifying nightmare when she saw her husband and her lover on that same night, fighting, really going at each other on the street outside her lover's house. Her lover ended up dead later, his body - the body she saw her husband toss into the backseat of a car - found in a park, beaten to a pulp then shot.

And will wonders never cease? Lauren was actually a cop! When the case of her dead colleague-cum-lover-for-a-day was assigned to her, she was thus confronted with moral dilemmas and conflicts of interest. Would she turn her husband in? Would she muster the courage to come out clean? To what great lengths would she go for the "truth?"

Whatever choice Lauren had, any option left nothing to be desired. The repercussions were dire, her future bleak. For any choice she would make could cost her the career she worked so hard for and loved, her once perfect marriage, even her own life...

Like any Patterson novel, The Quickie had a lot of twists and turns and just when you thought you had it all figured out (and figured out right), Patterson would come up with more surprises up his sleeve.

Thus in reading this book, prepare for the unexpected.