Samhain Publishing, $4.50, ISBN 978-1-60504-666-2
Contemporary Romance, 2009
Talk about a bad hair day. Krista James is not happy that her fiancé David Ellison was late for their lunch date, but when she pays David a visit at his office, she finds him, er, enjoying lunch with his secretary instead. Okay, she doesn’t really get to see the face of the man doing the shagging, but she can only conclude that David is the one boinking her. It’s his office, after all. Instead of confronting them, she storms off to make some minor changes to their upcoming honeymoon trip to Tahiti. For a start, she’s upgrading the package to a luxury one. And oh yes, the man won’t be coming.
The thing is, David’s secretary has been sneaking her boyfriend in for some lunch time fun behind the boss’s back, and David is actually innocent of the sin Krista thinks he has committed. Dragging the secretary and her boyfriend along with him as he explains the situation to Krista is probably too logical an action here for the sake of the story, so David meets Krista alone, sweeps her into a manly kiss instead of groveling, and my god, he doesn’t even bring a bouquet of flowers. I’d have dumped that loser for the last bit alone, I tell you, but then again, maybe that’s why I’m not the heroine in a contemporary romance.
Love Me Knots is a familiar story that I have come across many times before. Guy takes girl for granted, the girl goes off to a holiday on her own, the guy shows up, and after some hot sex and some emotional exchanges, they decide that the wedding will proceed after all. This one follows the script pretty faithfully, although Ms Tenorio tries and succeeds pretty well in trying to add some freshness to the recognizable story line. I like the fact that the characters address and discuss their relationship in a believable manner.
Still, I have my doubts about marrying a man like David. He’s really clueless about dealing with a woman. Pair that to his desire to do things the practical way to the point that he pretty much kills any romantic mood by being sensible, and I get a good-looking but dim-witted twit. I’d like to imagine that his clueless nature is a contrivance and not a reflection of any guy in real life. Because, if you ask me, no matter how good that guy is in bed, he can’t be proper husband material if he is so oblivious to the woman’s feeling. As a fling material, David may be do nicely, but as a husband, I suspect he’ll make poor Krista want to strangle him shortly after the honeymoon is over.
