Head On: Colleen Thompson

Head On, apply directly to forehead...Head On, apply directly to forehead. Like the annoying commercial, this novel does indeed give me a headache. Head On reminds me of a very bad redneck soap opera that is complete with men cheatin' on their wives, comparisons of loyalty to hound dogs and of course several cars breaking down. The town is falling apart and of course there is a rich and a poor side, a slew of Mexicans that are never really talked about and a whole helpin' of good ol' southern racists.

A no-good man comes back into the small town of Eudena, the same man who ruined the lives of one woman and killed three other women in a drunken car crash. Miz Beth Ann managed to survive the ordeal but now walks with a cane and carries a new put-together face. She's managed to divert her dreams of being a big city nurse to being stuck as one of the small town's home health workers, who just happens to be filling in for one of the other workers, to take care of...you guessed it....the drunkard's dad. Lo and behold they meet, the dad refusing to speak to his son much less call him by his name and the son feeling horrible because of course, the woman who's life he ruined, happens to be in the same room with him. To be expected, he still has the hots for her from wayyyyyyy back when in high school when she was one of those busty cheerleaders. Oh and what's this? He brought back a son, an afro-asian-white boy!

Miz Beth Ann's rich mama gets murderlized and the small town automatically thinks that the bad boy who came back to take care of his stubborn ol' mule of a dad, is the culprit. He did after all do many years in jail for intoxicated manslaughter so it is a good deduction.

Mark Jessup's dad is on the brink of death, his son is being made fun of because of his mixed heritage, his car has been painted on...then beat into...then windows smashed, he gets beat up by a WRENCH and the guy can't keep his dick in his pants or his fantasies of screwing the cripple out of his head! Beth Ann gets beat up, shot at, her car dies, her other car loses windows, her house blows up and catches fire - and she can't help but fall in love with the guy that nearly killed her that night sixteen years ago.

Come on and say it with me...What the fuck?!

With all this love hub-bub going around, there is a murder to be solved. A mixture of a rookie deputy who has decided that he's gonna make it big like those guys from the TV CSI shows, an alcoholic sheriff who has had the title for god-knows how long and the rest of the ragtag police 'force,' we definitely know that is it going to take at least six months to get it solved, if ever. All this in the small town of Eudena that has not seen a murder in forty-some years. Eudena being as small as it is, it seems that EVERYONE wants a piece of the action and the gossip where your friends can prove to be the worst enemies. Hopefully the One Appointed will think better next time he/she/it decides to mess with Beth Ann and her attack dog of doom, a Labrador.

To give the book credit, if you look past all of the ridiculous romance plot junk, the murder mystery part was surprisingly good though I did figure out who at least one of the culprits were before the end of the book.

But come on, really, falling in love with someone who almost killed you and naming your villains One Appointed and The Companion is hilarious in itself. And of course my favorite quote from the book sums up the quality of the writing:

She'd never heard anything sexier than the tearing of that foil packet, never smelled anything so arousing as the scent of lubricated latex.

That is one desperate woman if she thinks the smell of condoms are hot. Two stars for the sheer amusement factor.

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Publisher: Love Spell (July 3, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0505527138
ISBN-13: 978-0505527134
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