At a posh little restaurant in Charleston, three ladies make a pact to celebrate their twenty-ninth birthdays: make their sexiest, naughtiest fantasies come true by the time they turn thirty.
Still Waters
Living up to her part of the pact is difficult for the shy, introverted Catherine. This modern Grace Kelly is all business with pleasure running a very distant second. When she chooses handsome real estate mogul, Phillip Trent, as her target Catherine's world is about to change. If he has anything to say about it, her fantasy of being treated as a princess by a mere commoner at her beck and call will come true.
Skin Deep
As an artist and world-class procrastinator, petite brunette Kallie has put off her end of the bet for as long as possible. Finding the perfect guy for a fling isn't as easy as it sounds! Little does she know her best friend and fellow baseball fanantic, Beau Donovan, has been waiting for the most opportune moment to ask for a date. At a minor-league ball game, Kallie is about to implement her plan...only to have Beau knocked out cold by a foul ball. Did he remember what she asked only moments before?
Party Girl
Cynical Gina doesn't believe in love. The popular redhead had a reputation as a wild child, with nothing to show for it except a broken heart when she is rejected (and berated) by Trey Lipman. But now she's all grown up and using her wealth for philanthropy, with zero desire to get involved in a sexy little fling. When her gal pals ship her off on a vacation cruise, Gina plans on spinning a fairy tale to make good with the girls...only to find herself face-to-face with her past when she finds Trey on the same cruise. Can Gina's broken heart be mended?
Blonde, brunette, redhead. Sounds like free advertising for Clairol.
The storylines: in a word? Derivative. They're rich, sexy-as-hell, and each suffers from an "oh god I'm inferior" complex. There is nary a challenge in fulfilling the bargain, since their particular sex fantasies revolve around a perfect, sexy-as-hell man with washboard abs and perfect jawlines...and as luck would have it, the man is also in love with the beautiful woman! Yeah, there's a fantasy for you. Yahoo, baby.
To add to the misery, the sex scenes are repetitive, juvenile, and contrived. I deserve much more than page after page of the same adjectives: shivering, shaking, panting, shuddering, buckling and/or weak knees, and the inability to communicate beyond a few words due to a constricted throat. If my lover exhibited such behavior, I'd think he was on the verge of a seizure instead of desperately horny. I won't even bother with the continual hardness of these poor men. Priapism is quite painful, and I have no intention of poking fun at such a serious medical condition.
Although the stories of Catherine and Gina are sorely lacking in every regard, I must give kudos to the author for her take on Kallie and Beau. A head wound is a fresh way to throw up a roadblock in a budding romance. As a bonus, there is the "perfect fit" issue. Standard romance formulas demand this be included somewhere in the novel (the ubiquitous reference to winter handwear comes to mind.) Kallie and Beau are in a different quandry when his muscle car won't fit in her garage.
If you're into third-rate writing without a strain on your imagination, by all means jump on this.
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Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: NAL Trade (January 2, 2007)
ISBN: 0451220234
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