Arabesque, $5.99, ISBN 1-58314-208-8
Contemporary Romance, 2001
Are you yearning for those good old days of bad, bad romances where the couple just cannot be together for the entire story because of one tiny miscommunication problem? Well, don’t just stand there and gawk, go dash to your nearest bookstore and grab a copy of Reunited now. Or better still, order from the Amazon link below and give me a 15% commission. Yes, I’m greedy.
Do be warned, though, if you are looking for a big misunderstanding story where the hero and heroine scream and yell until their hearts expire and their mouths spew bile and bitter blood, you’ll be disappointed. Reunited is actually pretty serene. The problem threatens to explode in a mess I don’t want to think about, not in times like this. The danger signs are there, making me fear to turn the pages because I don’t want to be splattered by bad blood or anything. But the explosion never came. A second rereading, with my blood pressure at a more relaxed level now that I know there is no gruesome screeching and eye clawing, however still doesn’t increase my enjoyment much. This story is silly, because it’s all based on a silly miscommunication thing.
Okay, okay, the story. Rosie Wright is the owner of Yahimba, an interior decoration biz. She has had a broken marriage behind her, and she is happy. That is, until LeMar Reed comes back to town, moves in that nice if old house Rosie always hoped of buying, and asks her to decorate it! Rosie and LeMar go way back. They had a thing back in college, a wonderful thing. Wonderful things meant the lady had a wonderful surprise nine months later too, and by then LeMar was gone without her knowing where. Oops. She married to give her baby a name, of course, and it turned out to be a smelly-stuff marriage – what do you expect when you marry for that, Rosie?
Can LeMar forgive Rosie for marrying while he is away? Yes, he plans on coming back. Can Rosie forgive him for leaving her pregnant like that? Yes, she never told him, and for the rest of this story, she clings to the secret like Anna Nicole Smith clawing at the will of her late geezer hubby out of the reach of geezer’s family members. Thing is, jeez. If Rosie could have friends back then telling her that LeMar was seeing someone else, how could she then say she had no idea how to contact him? What? “Oh, Rosie, girlfriend, did you hear? I saw LeMar the other day in this movie theater with this skank, and she is so over him! But, uh-huh, girlfriend, I don’t know where LeMar is. I just saw LeMar the other day near my place, but I really don’t know where he lives.”
Since Rosie had dropped out of school because she was so heartbroken over LeMar’s AWOL stint (nice move, giving up your education because a guy dumped her – maybe when he sees her one day on the streets begging for food, he’ll finally feel like a scumbag – yeah, revenge at last!), maybe she can stake out at this girlfriend’s place to catch that bastard? I don’t know, but that’s just me. I guess it is possible that a friend can tell you where she sees the missing guy but can’t tell you where he – and she – is. If you can figure out how, let me know. Wait, aha! Unless this tell-tale is the girl who’s all over LeMar – that’s right! Rosie, did you suspect?
Nah. These two dim bulbs can’t even talk, how do I expect them to do some thinking on their own? Still, these two people are rather decent people. They’re beautiful, sexy, rich… and dim. Just what I need to feel good about myself and feel superior than those better-off folks.
