Harlequin Duets, $5.99, ISBN 0-373-44076-6
Contemporary Romance, 1999

To me, there is a thin line between being eccentrically funny and going over-the-top.

Dana Vanover overhears her fiancé’s shady dealings just before her wedding nuptials while on board his luxury yacht. It is night. Terrified, the woman jumps overboard and swims all the way to the nearest island. She reaches the private island of a Beena McQueen who keeps 72 cats and has a personal astrologer for the cats. The isle is populated with weird senior citizen biddies playing castle guards and other kooky nonsense. And the only man on the island is hunky Sam Taylor, Beena’s nephew and a vet to the cats. He sees her in flimsy revealing underwear and they start hearing the celestial call to mate and procreate.

She needs a place to hide from her fiancé and the upcoming nuptials, and what better way than to fake amnesia and enjoy a nice holiday to boot on loonybin island? The view is pretty good too.

Now, I don’t know why but the first thing that hit me upon reading Bride on the Loose is the forced feel of the humor. Beena is definitely over the top with her garish fingernail portrait collections, cats, and her assorted old buddies who take turn matchmaking and meddling with the two young people. Dana is your typical kook who is spunky, spunky, spunky, and little else. Sam is your typical hero: nice, nice, nice, and little else.

Come to think of it, the author put them through so many activities, that these two actually find little quiet time together. Hence I can’t see why these two should actually fall in love.

And for a romantic comedy, well, I am not amused. I find the attempts at humor, for instance Beena’s many theories of “amnesiac” Dana’s origins, simply ho-hum.

I am not convinced. I am not amused. This book hence fail my “Entertain Or Else!” criteria. Off to the chopping block. Next!