Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Published: June 13, 2005
Copyright: 2005
Pages: 306
Form: Paperback
Series: Stand Alone
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WHAT STARTS AS A GAME…
Duncan Hillston has a solid rep as a “player” who’s always good for a story about his latest conquest. But when he’s accused of being all talk and no action, Duncan bets his buddy he can get a woman to fall in love with him in no time flat. Duncan’s sure he’ll win, even if his buddy picks the woman-and even if the woman is Claire “Medusa” Scott.
TURNS INTO A ROMANCE…
Back in high school, Claire was no heartbreaker. Brainy and serious, she had a major crush on Duncan-but he didn’t even know she was alive! Now, at thirty, Claire is making up for lost time with a prestigious job and a new look to match. When Duncan comes out of nowhere to sweep her off her feet, Claire is sure it’s a dream come true…
WHERE ALL THE RULES ARE BROKEN…
To Duncan’s surprise, Claire is sweet, sexy, and not at all what he expected. The truth is, his love-em-and-leave-em days are over, and he doesn’t even care! But if Claire discovers their romance began as a bet, can their love survive-or will he lose her forever?
My Thoughts
Sigh. This book ended up being a major disappointment. Though it got off to a very promising start, and progressed to an interesting and sweet romance, the ending of this book dissolved into utter ridiculousness.
Claire irritated me a bit. She is supposed to be a genius in this book, but does some really dumb and silly stuff. Not to mention she’s one of those I’m better and much smarter than you so why am I even wasting my time entertaining you type of geniuses. She is very snobby towards Duncan when he first approaches her and continues to remind him from time to time of just how much smarter than him and most people she is. But once she finds out about the bet Duncan makes, she acts like a complete and total idiot in front of him and his juvenile friends to make a point. For someone so smart, she could have found a more clever way to express her feelings about the betrayal she was feeling.
Duncan kind of grows on you. At first you really don’t care for him or his braggadocios manner. But as he begins to woo Claire and gain understanding of his own feelings by talking to his married brothers, you begin to soften towards him and hope he gets his act together. You find yourself beginning to enjoy their budding romance and them both finding love where they least expected it.
But the ending of this book was silly, stupid, and completely unbelievable. Claire’s so called best friend from high school Annabelle, who claims to be a model but is really a high class hooker, plants an account code she stole from an illegal arms dealer on Claire knowing that her life would be in danger if she did. Following several attempts on her life for this code, Claire finally finds out what they want and promises to return it while they hold Duncan and Annabelle captive. In the meantime, Duncan suddenly becomes MacGyver and builds several makeshift bombs from the random crap in a broom closet they are being held in while Annabelle acts like she’s oblivious to the danger they’re in and is concerned more with finding something to eat than getting away safely. During their time together, Duncan can’t help himself but to reveal to Annabelle about the bet. Although he is well aware of the shitty human being she is, and understands she really has no regard for anyone but herself. Pure and utter foolishness.
When they all finally get away, Claire confronts Annabelle about putting her life in danger and Annabelle acts very self-righteous and indignant about her actions. She gets nasty and defensive and tries to hurt Claire again by telling her all about the little bet Duncan made. If this is what best friends are made of, I say who needs them. So then Claire reveals she knows this information at the block party in front of Duncan and his friends by acting like his maid dujour to get revenge. Asking him dumb shit like, can I massage your feet and what can I get you in front of his crass ass friends. And then his friends start hooting and hollering and making very nasty remarks to and about Claire while Duncan stands there dumbfounded and not doing or saying anything to defend the woman he is so in love with.
I call bullshit on the entire ending of this book and it really ruined the story for me. What started as a promising romance story ended up being an abysmal failure. Never again!