Samhain Publishing, $4.50, ISBN 1-59998-923-9
Contemporary Romance, 2008

It’s Halloween night. We have two friends, Iris Foley and Russell Carr, who decide to spend the evening watching horror movies and pretending to be in a Star Trek movie in order to celebrate a successful year of working together as business partners. They are about to move on to reenacting “friends who decide to have sex” characters from their favorite Harlequin Blaze books when the power goes out right after what seems like an alien invasion warning on TV.

But even the threat of alien invasion and the end of human civilization as we know it can stop the “Oops, I exchanged body fluids with my hot friend!” drama from happening as our two lovebirds try to find the right time and mood to get jiggy even as they deal with all these mysterious happenings taking place around them. I have to laugh because these people are so single-minded at getting busy that any concern, much less curiosity, seems to take a backseat to their randy urges.

While I find the characters’ preoccupation with getting it on rather hard to believe given their situation, Iris and Russell are familiar characters to anyone who have read “friends who become lovers” stories before but they have enough chemistry and likability to carry the story. The puzzle of whether the world is really ending provides some suspense, although I confess that I see the ending coming early on in my reading. The unusual situation that the characters are stuck in makes this story far more memorable than it would otherwise be since the characters are very recognizable stereotypes and the dynamics of their relationship are very predictable.

All in all, The Last Man on Earth is a pretty memorable and well-written take on the “friends who become lovers” formula, if only because of its premise.