It’s not just me, right? This guy looks like a Lifetime movie villain? Like if Meredith Baxter Birney was a single mom who has just moved into a new town for a fresh start and becomes a waitress in a quirky, yet oddly homey diner, this guy would be the first one to befriend her and be really nice to her kids and take her out on a fancy night on the town? But once he got gained her trust, he would start to become controlling and begin yelling at the kids and forbid her to hang out with her friends and tell her she’s getting fat and he can always find a younger, prettier woman and no man will ever want her except him, then he’ll start hitting her, not where it will show, and it’ll steadily get worse and worse until she starts wearing shades to the diner and Madge, the owner of the diner, will get concerned and tell her that she don’t need no man and Meredith Baxter Birney should take the kids and get out of town and by the way, here’s Madge’s pin money? But like, this jerk will catch MBB in the act of running away and he’ll threaten to kill the kids if she tries to escape, so MBB will wait till he’s asleep on their bed, then set it on fire?

Jesus, look at this guy! If he made a very special effort to look more like a jerk, I don’t think he’ll be successful. He’s got the slicked back hair (Jesus, what did he use on it, Crisco ?) that showcases a very unfortunate hairline, a disapproving glare in his beady little eyes (I bet he got home from work and MBB didn’t have dinner ready on the table), and I bet when MBB’s teenage daughter brings her friends home, he always hits on them and freaks them out, so that they don’t want to come back anymore. What a jerk.

Grade: B

When I first saw the cover of this book, I thought it was going to be one of those Red Dress Ink type things about some neurotic (substitute black for white) twenty something girl working in a publishing company as some kind of editorial slave who has wacky adventures sleeping with a plethora of men, gabbing with her girlfriends and gay best friend about dick sizes, and experimenting with designer drugs, while trying to find herself or some shit like that, but I was wrong. This cover is just too damned bright, the font looks like the title font of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the cartoon woman looks like Old Navy threw up on her. Don’t get me wrong, I like this cover… but not for this type of book. Not for a book that has any of the following: chain-smoking demons, psycho evil exes, a hot guy who is kind of like a vampire but not really, a black girl with super powers… wait a minute, slap a white girl on the cover and this could pass for a Katie McAllister novel. The only difference between this book and ANYTHING by Katie McAllister is that I liked this book. I didn’t love it. I didn’t want to marry it and run away with it to Cabo or anything. But I liked it.
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What a beautiful man. Who is he, you may ask? His name is Ben Jelen and other than that, I don’t know shit about him except he’s so damn pretty. He’s got Asiatic features but according to his profile on IMDB, he’s Scottish or something. Anyway, he also kind of looks girly and because I like chicks as well as boys, that totally works for me. Man, this guy is pretty. He makes me want to do things to his body that should be deemed illegal in the Continental United States (and probably already is). If he’s got nice feet, then I’m done for. I fucking love feet. Does that make me a freak?

Oooh…you know who else is preternaturally pretty? Tom Welling. Sure, Smallville is a piece of crap show, but I watch it sometimes in hopes that there will be a shower scene involving Clark Kent where he drops his towel and we see those glistening rock-hard abs of his. And if that scene happened to involve him making out with Lex Luthor, like with tongues and shit, then I would pretty much die happy.

Hmm… I suddenly have a hankering for a sandwich. Excuse me.

I don’t usually dig cartoon covers, but there’s something about this cover that’s really eye-catching. If I saw it at a bookstore, I’d pick it up. The covers are very loud, but somehow they go together. There’s also a very retro look to the woman. I love the headband. I also dig the “oh, no you didn’t” pose. With the way she’s got her arms crossed like that, you know that if her date doesn’t call within the next two minutes, she’ll beat his head in with the phone the next time she sees him. That’s hot.

I’m not sure what’s going on with her neck, though. And it kind of freaks me out that she doesn’t have a face. I don’t like faceless heads, man.

When does this book come out, anyway? There isn’t a release date on Amazon. Grr.

Update: According to Wendy, it’s not being released till December 5th. UGH! Hmm… maybe Monica will send me an ARC.

Update: The Divine Monica graciously provided me with a PDF copy. WHOO-HOO!

Grade: C+

The only romance novel I have ever read where the male or female protagonist wasn’t white was Tempting Danger by Eileen Wilks. The heroine in that one was Chinese and the hero was white. I don’t set out to pick out romance novels with only white people in it; it just happens that way. I would be interested to find out the ratio between romance novels with white protagonists and a romance novel with non-white protagonists that are being published in today’s market. In this case, the female protagonist is black and the male protagonist is white. I don’t know why this pairing doesn’t happen more often. It’s really hot. I saw this really, really bad movie once called Supernova (it’s kind of like Event Horizon, except 10 times as bad) with Angela Bassett and James Spader and they do it in this anti-gravity chamber and boy, that was hot (there’s a rumor that the bodies actually belong to Robin Tunney and Peter Facinelli and Angela Bassett and James Spader’s features were just super-imposed during post but it’s hotter if you replace them with Angela Bassett and James Spader, ne c’est pas?). Smack me around if I’m being ignorant, but black women are less likely to date outside their race, right? I mean, whenever I’m out and about, I would see black men walking around with a white girl, an Asian girl, or a Hispanic girl, but rarely do I ever see a black woman walking around with a man who isn’t black. Anyway, I wanted to read a good interracial romance, and a few people recommended this book to me. Luckily, I had a copy in my TBR mountain (I don’t even know what I have anymore). The cover’s cool, the hero could be oblivious to the point of stupidity, the heroine could use a good kick in the head, but the book never bored me and I finished it in one sitting.

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