Phaze, $2.00, ISBN 1-59426-527-5
Contemporary Erotica, 2005

Our heroine Maxie Travis has discovered the answer to the question that we mere simple women have been asking since the day of time. What do you do to attract the attention of a man who doesn’t seem to reciprocate your affection? Let Maxie show you how: just start cavorting in your smallest sun dress under the town fountain so that your headlights are flashing right at the eyes of the hero, cop Seth McDougal. It’s probably a good thing for the town of Temple that Maxie is only a police dispatcher and not someone responsible for making big and important decisions. And because Seth gets turned on when a woman gives the whole town a free wet T-shirt show, these two are soon shagging despite Seth’s “MacDougal’s Rule” which tells him to never get involved with anyone in the Department.

Adrianna Dane’s MacDougal’s Rule isn’t significantly more erotic than a typical Brava offering and the heroine Maxie is actually a very typical sexy contemporary romance heroine spawned from Lori Foster’s heroine factory: Maxie is actually reserved and professional but she wants Seth so much that she’ll do something daring just to get his attention. In the case of this book, the result is unintentionally comedic and far from erotic. When Maxie dares Seth to come chase her while she is in the town fountain, for example, I can just picture the two of them running up and down the street with her dripping wet in a scene straight out of a parody of a Bollywood movie. The love scene, involving plenty of runny noses, sticky Kleenex, and cough medication, will be especially hot, I’m certain.

When the end product is more hilarious than erotic, I don’t think MacDougal’s Rule is on the right track.