The Sassy One (Marcelli Sisters of Pleasure Road) [Mass Market Paperback]

In Santa Barbara, research student widow Francesca Marcelli fakes being pregnant as part of an experiment to see if people would help her deliver packages. Males ignore her and females nod in empathy, but no one stops to assist her. When she reaches the empty offices of Malcolm and White Data Tech, she meets the CEO of Security International, Sam Reese. He takes her into his office, feeds her, and offers to hold the packages for now. She admits that she is a social psychology grad student wearing a fake device to emulate pregnancy.

Sam takes Francesca to dinner as they are attracted to one another. However, neither wants a long-term relationship though both their families encourage the widowed Francesca and the divorced Sam to marry. Even love may prove too weak to keep this couple together.

Though his ex returning seems only to raise unnecessary tension, fans will enjoy the second Marcelli sister tale. The story line is fun as the estrogen as in the first tale (see THE SPARKLING ONE) is at a fever pitch as it was with the first novel. The lead couple is a fine pair, who claims there not in love, but we, the families and Susan Mallory know better.

Harriet Klausner

Ok I read all the books out of order which gave away some of the secrets -- but was still a lot of fun. This is series is about the Marcelli family ( a Italain/Irish wine making family) and the love matches of the siblings. This book is Franseca's story (middle twin daughter) who has been a widow for years and now plans to have sex with the first goodlooking man she finds.... Check out the whole series; The Sparkling One (1),The Sassy One (2),The Seductive One (3), The Marcelli Bride (4),The Marcelli Princess (5 coming out 2007).

This is the second book in Susan Mallery's `Marcelli Sisters of Pleasure Road' series.

In this second novel Francesca Marcelli is the protagonist. Francesca is fraternal twin to Brenna- both girls were married in a joint wedding when they were 18. Brenna divorced her no-good hubby in book #1, but Francesca's husband left her widowed at the age of 21 when he died in a car accident.

We only got the bare facts about Francesca in the first novel - and I was under the impression that her widowhood left her so devastated that at the age of 27 she had yet to resume her love life. In `The Sassy One' it's actually revealed that Francesca was unhappily married to her husband, Todd. Apparently Todd was only interested in Francesca as arm-candy, so when she found herself widowed Francesca decided to reclaim her self-confidence and self-worth and go back to University to get her degree, and PhD.
This is a bit of cop-out. I think this novel could have been a lot more interesting if Mallery had Francesca painted as the grieving widow - reluctant to lose her heart because she still loves her dead husband. It seems so easy, like a romance scapegoat to just say; "oh, she never really loved her first husband".

My biggest problem with `The Sassy One' is that the plot really overshadows the romance.

Francesca has known Sam Reese all of 48 hours when Sam's ex-wife dumps him with a 12-year-old daughter he never knew existed so that she can live the high life in Europe with her younger lover. It's quite a whammy. And a double-whammy that Francesca not only decides to keep seeing Sam, but she freely offers her time and babysitting skills to help him out. Keep in mind that Francesca has only known Sam for 2 dates. True, there was mind-blowing sex - but no way does that explain why she's so willing to stick around through this bombshell. Especially after she just finished explaining to Sam that she wants no-strings-attached sex.

This bombshell plot comes too soon into Francesca and Sam's relationship - Mallery gives them no breathing room. It's all helter-skelter from the moment Sam's daughter, Kelly, walks through the door and readers never get a chance to get to know Sam and Francesca without the intense plot overshadowing their relationship.

No matter how sweet some moments between them are, the plot/character ratio is totally out of whack in this book. And for that reason it's totally implausible when Sam finds himself falling in love with Francesca... I can't help but think his loving her had more to do with gratitude at his neediest moment rather than genuine affection, no matter how much Mallery tries to ram the latter down our throats.

Surprisingly enough, I will be reading book #3. Mostly because Mallery has set-up Brenna's romance from the first and that one holds the most appeal for me.