Jove, $5.99, ISBN 0-515-13491-0
Paranormal Romance, 2003

Ever read a book that just knows how to push all your wrong buttons? That’s what Cupid’s Melody is for me. If the author has sent a pack of evil clowns to come over to my house and frying-pan me into a coma while playing ugly happy kiddie music in the background, that would be a mission of mercy compared to me having to read this book. I find the plot grotesquely stupid, the hero unforgivably selfish, and the heroine a doormat that lets herself be used in most disgraceful ways.

Nic Stone is a faery dude who is in love with his mortal wife Anna. He asks Queen Titania to grant Anna immortality, but too late he learns that this means that Anna must die and be reborn as a child first. As he spends twenty-five years painting Titania’s portrait (his payment to her), the reincarnated Anna grows up into Dianna Fielding, pop singer extraordinaire. Or so he believes. He poses as a gardener to get close to Dianna, but to his dismay, he finds himself more attracted to Dianna’s sister Stacy.

So this is a story of a man who lusts after and later has wild sex with one sister all the way intending to steal the other sister from her husband-to-be. I’m not kidding. Close to the bitter end, Nic is still intend on stealing his supposedly true love from her guy while frisking, sleeping with, and doing things he really should be saving up for his “true love” with the other sister. He knows that Stacy has feelings for him, but does that stop him? Heck, even during his orgasm, he is comparing it to the ones he had with his darling Anna. What a charming guy. He ranks up there with crocodiles and hairy potbellied pigs as the sexiest guys around. Even his superficial indecision – oh, darling Anna or this hot wench? – smacks of self-serving here’s-my-middle-finger-to-you oiliness.

And Stacy? What an idiot. She knows that he wants Dianna, but she actually cooperates with him, because to her, he deserves happiness with his true love. Touching, isn’t it? The fact that Mr True Love here is cheating on his true love with her doesn’t probably register much – there aren’t that many coins in this woman’s cash register, that’s for sure.

And none of them actually thought of telling Dianna. It is as if Dianna here has no free will. For Nic, an asshole, that’s a given. But Stacy is Dianna’s sister – what is her excuse to go behind Dianna’s back to play bad matchmaking games?

More infuriating is that even after it is evident that Stacy is the real Anna – to all but Nic Stonebrain here, that is – Nic still clings to the rationale that his chemistry-free forced advances on Dianna is still the way to go. Because she is his “true love”, you know! The fact that she is young, sexy, and more voluptuous than Stacy probably has nothing to do with it. Nic Stonebrain – creep, selfish, obnoxious, creep.

It may or may not be a saving grace that this book is well-written. But the plot is just stupid, the hero loathsome, and the heroine so pathetic in that she will settle for less, that Cupid’s Melody is a mess. Thumbs down!