Avon, $6.99, ISBN 0-380-81918-X
Contemporary Romance, 2003

The hero Zach Taylor, military men and card-carrying member of the “I Wanna Be Just Like Suzanne Brockmann’s Dudes – Where the Dollars Are!” mile-high club, is a well-hung man. His balls are the size of overripe pumpkins and his penis will make even Tom of Finland’s wildest, most exaggerated artwork pale in comparison. And that man sure knows how to work that baby – watch him whip out that thing and smack every woman’s cheek as he calls them nasty names.

Freak.

Susan Andersen’s Getting Lucky is more like Getting Half-Baked. It’s like a watered down version of Baby, I’m Yours (road trip of two mistrustful characters) but without any decent characterization to go with it. The hero Zach starts out mistrusting the heroine as a con for no reason, keeps it up, blames her for him getting all hot and bothered, suspects the wrong guys as villains, and let’s just put it this way: he is a moron, plain and simple. He meets Lily “I Ain’t Ironic” Morissette when he comes home and sees her in the house instead of his sister Glynnis. “Con! Slut! Whore! Get out! Get out!” he’ll go, going as far as to invade her personal space and lays his hand on her.

Of course, instead of taking a frying pan and brain this pig, Lily insists on staying put. Later, when he learns that Glynnis is getting married, Creepy Big Brother is off to stop the marriage. I guess he probably wants to keep little sister with him forever and ever. Freak. Lily, determined to stop him from ruining her friend’s life, tags along. Zach’s enemy mistakes her for his woman and decides to kill her.

I love Zach. He’s wrong, 200% wrong, I wonder sometimes if there’s anything beyond static going on in that head of his. Maybe his moronic overcompensating bullying behavior is a result of repressed memories of his shower room hazing by the Marines. Sssh, it’s okay, Zach, you don’t show, I won’t tell. Of course, Lily is always right, but what little joy that is in seeing her being right again and again is ruined by Zach insisting on being stupid and wrong just as again and again. Lily is no pushover at the surface, but I seriously question the sanity of any woman who puts up with so much crap from a man who demonstrates again and again that he is only slightly smarter than a brain-damaged sloth.

Relationship development? Well, only if you count the increasing lengthening of Zach’s ever tumescent chub club. All it takes is one sex and wham! She wakes up realizing that even if he has treated her slightly better than a rash in his groin, she loves him! Which proves, I guess, that stupidity is an insidious STD.

There is very little character development in this story. Zach is so relentlessly alpha that he really comes off like a lumbering idiot caveman all the time, while Lily is nothing more than a plot contrivance: a nice gal who puts up with so much crap out of the usual dictates of loyalty, et cetera. Zach doesn’t even apologize to her well, but what the heck, she’ll wear his ring. I’m flummoxed. I’m all for an alpha mule who repents, but Zach isn’t just alpha as much as he is a moron. I doubt that man is worth sticking to, good sex or not.

I think fans of cavemen in modern uniform will be the only ones Getting Lucky today. I only hope the next book will see the author in a more plot-friendly offering.