Lovespell, $5.50, ISBN 0-505-52334-5
Paranormal Romance, 1999
Lisa O’Conner is a tired, fed-up housewife of 35 who has two screaming brats and an annoyingly workaholic hubby. One day, she cracks open a fortune cookie to read: Today your wish will come true. Nonsense! Until she sees this gorgeous twenty-year old in a car next to hers and wishes that she could be that woman. Next thing you know, Lisa and Tory Beecham have switched bodies. “Oh my God!” is right.
Lisa realizes that she loves hubby Michael and the two monsters and she wants them back. But Tory has amnesia and hence can’t recall a thing about her past, and there is no help from that department. Conveniently, Tory is the woman hired to do some clerical work in Michael’s law firm, so Lisa-in-Tory’s-body can be close to her family and keep an eye on things. She also gets herself hired as a part time Math tutor for her own son.
To complicate matters, Michael begins to feel an attraction to Tory-who’s-actually-Lisa. The real Tory’s boyfriend Dillon is breathing down her neck, and the final straw is when Lisa realizes that the body she’s renting is ten weeks pregnant. With Dillon’s baby. Altogether now: oh my God.
This is a fun story that is more of a comedy of errors and “Appreciate what you have before they’re gone story!” than a romance. It’s a hoot watching Lisa trying her best to get her old body back. Tory may be sexy and gorgeous, but hey, Lisa realizes that no guy takes you seriously at 20, life at 20 isn’t as fun as she remembers (no financial stability, for one), and she misses her family. On Mike’s part, he soon realizes his mistake in letting his marriage fall into rut and taking his wife for granted, and he is determined to repair the rift between him and his wife. Too bad he is attracted to “Tory”, who reminds him so much of the things he loves in Lisa. It is to Michael’s credit that he remains faithful to “Lisa” despite his attraction to Lisa (are you confused yet?).
The story lags a little in the middle, with too much emphasis on Lisa’s misadventures in Tory’s body, but I find this book very easy to like. It’s hilarious, fast-paced, and a totally loony story. That’s loony in a good way. Body & Soul is Jennifer Archer’s first published book, and I can’t wait to see what she’ll come up with next.
