This book won the 2006 Daphne Du Maurier Award for Excellence.
Note that the identical novel was republished by Silhouette as Volume One in their new "Sex in the Suburbs" series, and has most recently been published as a Kindle ebook under the title "She's Gotta be Mine" so don't buy this book if you already have either of those titles, or vice versa.
It was the first of five quirky comedy romances which this author has so far published under the name Jennifer Skully. These are -
Sex and the Serial Killer
Fool's GoldDrop Dead GorgeousSheer DynamiteIt Must be Magic (Mira (Direct))The sixth, "Your Heart or Mine," was due out in April 2008 but at the time of updating this review in March 2012 there was no sign of it.
These five books are independent and stand on their own with one partial exception. One of the main supporting characters of "Sex and the Serial Killer" is the hero of "Fool's Gold," which is set shortly afterwards. Some of the retrospective comments in that book could be mild spoilers for this one, so if you are minded to read both, tackle "Sex and the Serial Killer" first.
The heroine of "Sex and the Serial Killer," Roberta Jones Spivey, has just been dumped by her husband of 15 years. She foolishly helped him to find his former High School sweetheart, (supposedly so he could find "closure" by seeing her once more.) Surprise, surprise, when the search is successful the rat tells Roberta he is divorcing her and moving to Cottonmouth where his former sweetheart lives - even though the latter has not got round to leaving or divorcing her own husband.
Roberta decides to shorten her name to Bobbie Jones, and change her look - so far so good. But instead of saying "goodbye and good riddance" to her idiot of a husband, she resigns her job as head of accounting at a Silicon Valley company, follows her husband to Cottonmouth, and gets a job as a waitress paying a tenth of what she used to earn.
Moving into her newly rented house in Cottonmouth, the other neighbours warn her that the handsome man opposite is suspected of being a serial killer. Bobbie thinks they're talking nonsense - but flirting with an alleged serial killer to shock everyone, and especially her about-to-be-ex husband, sounds exciting.
One of the good things about Jennifer Skully's books is that you often can't tell what's going to happen. In two of her first four books, the heroine is warned not to date a man who her friends think may be a lunatic or a killer. In both books she thinks they're talking nonsense and goes ahead. In one novel the heroine is right and the man turns out to be a misunderstood good guy; in the other novel her friends are right and the man she's dating turns out to be a dangerous lunatic. In neither case can you tell until near the end of the book which way it will turn out. (And of course I'm not going to spoil either story by telling you which is which.)
In case you have read either of Jennifer Skully's most recent two books, I should mention that this first one, and the second and third, are slightly different from numbers four and five. "Sex and the Serial Killer", "Fool's Gold", and "Drop Dead Gorgeous" are straight romantic comedies with no supernatural or paranormal element whatsoever. By comparison "Sheer Dynamite" and "It must be magic" do have a supernatural/paranormal element. If you've seen either of them and this bothered you, don't let it put you off "Sex and the Serial Killer."
If you like a quirky,funny, madcap romance novel, you will very probably like "Sex and the Serial Killer."
N.B. Jennifer Skully also writes under two other pen names; as J.B. Skully she has written the "Max" series of dark romances which begins with "Dead to the Max"; as Jasmine Hayes she writes adult fantasy books such as "Resolutions" or
The Principal's Office."
