Grade: C+

How nice of Harlequin to put two of Lori Foster’s old backlists together and make me pay $9.99 for it. Ha ha, just kidding. I only paid $1.75 for it at my local USB. Sucker.

The first story, Scandalized! was published in 1997. I was this close to liking it. It has a cute twist to the whole “I! Must! Have! a Baby! Now!” cliché made popular by Harlequin Presents before I was even born. The heroine of this story is Olivia Anderson, a successful lingerie boutique owner, so you know she’s dead inside. Because she owns a business. And it’s successful.

When the book opens, Olivia is about to seal the deal with gorgeous man-about-town Tony Austin to install one of her boutiques in one of his hotels (that’s not a euphemism for anything, you pervs). Before Olivia could celebrate, however, Tony reveals to her that he’s had her investigated and knows everything there is to know about her. Everything. At this point, I would have screamed “fuck this shit!” and ran to the nearest police station to file a restraining order against the creep, but Tony’s not finished! Oh, no, not by a long shot. Why is he so interested in her, you ask? Well, it’s like this… Tony is a successful, handsome man who owns a successful chain of hotels, about five luxury cars, a mansion, and a family who ABSOLUTELY ADORES HIM, but there is something missing in his life. If you guess true love, you are wrong. Go home. If you guess BABY! BABY! BABY! then you are absolutely right and need to go outside and do something else because you’ve obviously read too many romance novels.

Anyway, Tony tells Olivia that he’s been observing her for a while and has chosen her womb as the oven for his bun because he believes she has good genes and they would make the perfect widdle baby. Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! In exchange for the usage of her body for nine months, he will give her a bunch of money and relocate her to another state, so that there is no chance that he and his new baby will run into her in the distant future. How nice. Instead of incapacitating him by bashing his head in with a bat, kicking him repeatedly in the nuts, running away to another country, and changing her name, Olivia decides that she will accept his offer, but only on her terms. She will allow him to impregnate her (I just threw up in my mouth while typing that), but only via lots of fucking and not in vitro fertilization like he wants. What Olivia, doesn’t tell him, however, is that she has AIDS, and only has three months to live. Just kidding! That would have been awesome, though. Not because AIDS is awesome (because it’s really awful), but… you know what? I’m sick, I need help. Ahem. What Olivia, doesn’t tell him, however, is that her uterus is a vast, barren wasteland like the Sahara, and she cannot ever have babies. Ever. That’s why she’s so dead inside! Awww.

Tony reluctantly agrees to Olivia’s terms and they get to the fizznuckin’, but not before heavy interference from his family first. His siblings are obviously refugees from Ms. Foster’s other books, but I’m too lazy to look them up. His siblings and their respective spouses are so annoying that they bypass the Bridgerton territory AND collect $200. Every time Tony and Olivia are about to have some sexin’, they bring their fucking kids over and make them baby-sit… you know, shit like that. Man, if I were getting ready for a whole weekend of heavy-duty boning to be administered by a really hot dude, and my sister drops by without warning and drops off her fucking kids, I would be like, “Wait a minute, you don’t have kids! Who are these children? Return them and get your money back, bitch!” But if she did have kids and brought them over while I was about to fizznuck a hot dude, I would slam the door on her face, nail two by fours to the door, turn off my cell phone, and unplug my land lines. TONY IS ABOUT TO FUCK A HOT CHICK, YOU BASTARDS! Man, some people just don’t have manners.

You know, I was totally digging Olivia. She’s a successful career woman, doesn’t bother with pesky details like the truth, would actually LIE to a guy to get some ass, and best of all, she’s dead inside (but angsty!). Tony wasn’t bad, either. He’s sweet, rich, rumored to be spectacular in the sack (of course, he’s a man-slut! What did you expect?), and did I mention rich? This story could have been awesome if Ms. Foster had cut out Tony’s family entirely (we get it, he wants a baby ‘cause he’s so ronery!) and instead used those pages to really, really explore Tony’s and Olivia’s developing feelings for each other. As it is, we don’t really get anything, except Tony’s relatives saying how perfect Tony and Olivia are for each other and how “natural” Olivia is at motherhood (gag!). I don’t want to hear this stuff from Tony’s family… I WANT TO SEE IT. Worse yet, I got the feeling at the end that Tony and Olivia only got together because they felt pressured by Tony’s family.

Also, there’s a scene in this book where Tony’s sister’s husband and Tony’s brother go to Olivia’s lingerie boutique to buy sexy underwear for their wives, and Tony’s sister’s husband tells Tony’s brother how hot Tony’s sister looks in lingerie. Dude, that’s just wrong. I don’t want to read about that shit. Unless it’s Incestuous Orgy Party Time! like that Linda Howard novel.

The next story titled Sex Appeal, first published in 2001, and tells the story of a woman named Shadow Callahan (aw fuck, a hippy!), an adult novelty shop proprietor. Oddly enough, her store doesn’t carry anal beads, double-headed dildos, strap-ons, or gimps masks. Naw, she sells T-shirts like the shit Britney wears (i.e. Britney’s MILF in Training T-shirt), cutesy thong underwear, and flavored body oils… you know, the average teenage third-base accessories. Shadow is a “free spirit” (read: she has an IQ of 30), a woman who speaks her mind (read: she humiliates herself every five minutes by the stupid shit she says), and dates four or five guys at a time (read: the last time she got laid was seven years ago and all of these guys are her platonic friends). Naturally, she will meet a straight-laced, stick-in-the-ass guy whose life she will brighten and beautify by bringing to him love and laughter (“wacky” antics ensue).

The hero in question is Brent Bramwell (an alliterative hero! My favorite!), an old money kind of dude who owns the building that houses Shadow’s Sex Appeal (but he doesn’t tell her, natch!). One day, he is walking down the street when he is entranced by the sight of a bare stomach and legs at a store window, and promptly falls on his ass in the snow. Shadow, who was the owner of the stomach and legs, was in the process of hanging Christmas lights when she sees Brent fall down like a ton of bricks, helps him out, and instantly falls in love with him. Fool.

On their first date, Shadow asks him what he’s looking for in a wife, and he says “For one thing, she can’t be a businesswoman. Too independent. And she would have to be biddable. Someone content to be a wife and mother above all things” (page 217). At first, I thought he is joking. He HAS to be joking. But he isn’t. At the very least, I expected supposedly forward thinking Shadow to laugh, throw coffee in his face, and go back to her store, but instead she just “smiled in understanding”. At this point, I was done with the book. I didn’t even want to finish it. What the fuck, Shadow? Are you or are you not a businesswoman? Are you or are you not an “independent” woman? If you want to get with this guy, you have to give up your business and identity to be a wife and love-slave to him and mother/slave to his children! Umm… I’m so upset that I’m ranting to a fictional character, and not a very well written one at that!

There is a side story about Shadow having a stalker, but this is just a plot contrivance so that Brent will act like a complete over-protective, super-controlling paranoid lunatic, and freak Shadow out, but it goes nowhere and it makes Shadow seem mentally retarded. To wit, her stalker steals the distributor cap of her car (which makes her car useless), forcing her to call Brent to pick her up, but she doesn’t think anything of it. Moron. We are also tortured by Brent’s ex-fiancée who is a cartoon villain and so one-dimensional that we are left to wonder about Brent’s taste in women. She is in the story to show us how Shadow is so much better for Brent. What it showed me is that Brent is a moron and I don’t understand how he’s a multi-billionaire who’s supposed to be a business whiz or something.

For Lori Foster, the supposed Queen of Blaze™, the second story has the lamest sex scenes I’ve ever read. So lame. So very tepid and kind of creepy.

In the end, I give the first story a B- for effort and the second story a D+ for creeping me out and disgusting me at the same time. Good job, Lori Foster. Man, I need a beer. Or four.

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