Harlequin Blaze, $4.50, ISBN 0-373-79007-4
Contemporary Romance, 2001

There ought to be a ban on plots like the one in Stephanie Bond’s Two Sexy!. The plot doesn’t just insults me, it bitch-slaps me blue in the face.

Picture this: Meg Valentine is a schoolteacher. Or a librarian. I forget what she is, except that she works in some jobs reserved specially for Harlequin romance novel heroines, and frankly, I don’t care. But one day, she lets her hair down, takes off her glasses, and voila! She is practically the twin of the new Marilyn Monroe, sexiest babe in the world, Taylor Gee!

And poor Meg, can’t get a date at all because oh, she is so plain and dowdy. Until she takes off the glasses, and look, everybody now notices her super babe body and super gorgeous face! Wow.

How much did those spectacles manufacturers pay Stephanie Bond to write this nonsense? It can’t be much, if the author doesn’t even try to tone down the “spectacles are evil” propaganda.

And it gets better. Taylor Gee is in love with her brother’s best friend – aaaarrggghh, here we freaking go again, I HATE THIS PLOT DEVICE, I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE THIS! Did I get my message loud and clear? – but this guy, Jarett Miller, who is Taylor’s bodyguard – AAAAAAHHH! – just doesn’t want Taylor. After all, Taylor, since she is an actress and not a librarian/schoolteacher/moron, has to be punished and so she is some pill-popping coke-ho-in-the-making shrew.

Since Jarett can’t have Taylor, he has the doppelgänger instead.

Ugh.

Meg switches places in a way with Taylor when Taylor gets too fond of her pills, and soon we learn that life of an actress is so not cool. It’s better we women have no dreams, stay at home, taking care of the kids, and moan that we can’t get a man. Uh huh, that’s nice. If I haven’t read better books by Stephanie Bond, I would’ve sworn that Stephanie Bond can’t write for peanuts. Poor gal, I hope the royalty check is worth it.