Trouble in High Heels (Fortune Hunter) [Mass Market Paperback]

What a great, enjoyable read! Tiramisu is that wonderful Italian dessert of espresso, rich cream cheese and elegant flavors that means "pick me up" in Italian. That image fits this charming book to a tee. Well done characters, especially the female lead, who (for a change!) when placed in a dangerous situation has the common sense to listen to a man who knows how to handle the situation. So often, weaker authors will have the female lead do something completely stupid just to prove her independance. Additional secondary characters are thought out and ADD to the plot, enriching the story and making the emotional connections reasonable and sweet. The sensuality between the lead couple is dynamite and I love any story that can use $8000 to justify not only a superior Spa Day but to underwrite an entire life change. Remember, this tasty little gem of a book is not meant for anything more than the best escape--putting too many expectations on the story could cause the lightness and fun to deflate like over-beaten whipped cream.

Brandi Michaels learns that her fiance has dumped her and eloped to Vegas with his girlfriend on the same day as she uproots her life and moves from Nashville to Chicago to be closer to him. When he asks for her engagement ring back to give to his new bride, it's the last straw. Brandi takes the ring to a pawn shop, and uses the money from its sale to buy a new dress, a sexy pair of F-me heels and a day at the spa. With her beauty regimen completed, she plans to meet a man and have one night of passion to erase the memory of her errant fiance and kick off the beginning of her new life.

Roberto Bartolini just happens to be at the same party as Brandi and can't helped but be captivated by the leggy blonde bombshell in the clingy dress. When she decides to seduce HIM, he can't help but agree. They spend a passionate weekend in his suite and when they part ways, Brandi believes they'll never see each other again. Little does she know that when she begins her new job at a law firm the next day, Roberto will be there--as her client.

This novel was entertaining from start to finish with enough mystery and romance to keep me intrigued. Roberto Bartolini was the best hero with his passionate nature, tendency to cater to women, and insistence on putting Brandi first. I couldn't wait to see him break down all of Brandi's defenses and convince her that he was the man for her. Brandi was funny and I loved that she made Roberto work for everything that he got. Their romance created sparks from beginning to end and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys romantic suspense. This was my first Christina Dodd novel, but I will definitely be looking forward to the next one.

There's the heroine, Brandi, who has issues with her parents - her parents divorced and she overheard a few too many cruel comments before her dad finally walked out. She's so terrified of being in the same situation as her mother, needy and feminine, that she essentially repudiates her Mother and everything she has taught her to be (feminine, sweet, dependent) in order to become a self-sufficient lawyer who needs nobody.

Over the course of the novel she learns a lot of hard lessons - that the fiance she picked to be the exact opposite of her father is really a lot like him; that she has become like her father by rejecting and infantalizing her mother. She has to face them, and make new choices, finding a man who will treat her right, re-forging her relationhip with her mother. And she has to kick her father out of her life entirely.

The hero, Roberto, is not as richly drawn. He's actually very hard to understand, and although his POV is scattered through the novel the reader never gets to see deep enough into his thoughts to understand his motivations and behavior. His feelings about Brandi seesaw without any apparent logic; one day he wants no commitment and is all love-em-and-leave-em, and the very next day he's introducing her to the family and mentioning marriage. His purpose in Chicago is a little unclear; he wants revenge of some kind, and redemption, but we're left to wonder what exactly that means to him - although this turns out to be easy enough to guess, and eventually I wondered how Brandi had failed to spot the obvious.

But really, so far, so good. It's in the execution that things really go awry.

"Trouble in High Heels" does two things that make me instantly hate any romance novel:

(1) The heroine is always angry or snappish or bickering, and the hero finds this adorable. There's a point after some minor trauma where the hero says something like, "Ah, there you are, snapping at me again - you must be back to yourself! How delightful!" I don't like heroines who have nothing nice to say, and I don't like the heroes who find them delightful.

(2) The book concludes with a lengthy grovel on the part of the hero. I can't stand it when the high-point of the novel, the real proof of the hero's worthiness, is that he's willing to abase himself for the heroine no matter how persistently she rejects him. On top of which, in this case I didn't think he'd done anything wrong and I had no idea where Brandi got off being angry.

But there's so much more. Here's a typical example. There's a subplot about how Brandi turns her back on ballet because her father thinks its worthless, and she says she hasn't danced since she was thirteen; except other times, she brings it up and is very proud of being a ballerina and is apparently still practicing. The ideas are there but the development is poor and inconsistent.