DP is still enthralled with her connecting storylines of police investigations, but she’s run out of terrorists and drug dealers. Enter: Organized crime. Our hero is straight outta New Jersey, complete with accent, sentimental stories about his grandmother and his loyalty to his mob family. He helpfully explains to the clueless heroine that he’s had to do Bad Things for Good Reasons – just like the Godfather and the Sopranos. He’s in Jacobsville (with his limo and driver) to hide out and work to clear his mob brother’s name.
Heroine is an orphaned beauty with rheumatoid arthritis. She walks with a cane and can’t afford any medical treatment except for ibuprofen and leeches time off from work. She lives in a boarding house on the first floor. Hero (who is beyond wealthy) decides to move into the boarding house as well. His driver can stay at the new motel outside of town.
H/h are smitten with each other from the beginning and their romance is cute if a little surreal. Hero calls heroine “a violet under a stair” for her fey beauty. They bond when the hero has a migraine after eating cheese. They spend countless pages earnestly talking about migraines, the heroine’s condition and all the causes and remedies for such conditions.
They would not be out of place in senior’s home. For instance, heroine, at age 24, muses that women can be called out for sexual harassment on the job - unlike the old days. Hero waxes rhapsodic about how the heroine reminds him of grandmother. *Other *characters explain to the heroine how she reminds them of hero’s grandmother. Now there’s romance.
AARP you have found your new spokesmodels.
I won’t go into the police investigation except to say that it’s not finished. The wannabe OW is a baddie as are her friend who worked at the courthouse and the new line cook at Barbara’s café. (They all had NY accents!)
Hero is in the clear as far as I can tell, but he’s still in the mob and he justifies it this way:
“He was fair and honest, and he never hurt anybody without a damned good reason.”
Well, you had a damned good reason – all right then.
Heroine is apparently going to be married to the mob and all is right with the world by the end. Oh, DP, you never cease to surprise me.
Diana Palmer checklist:
Hairy chest” thick hair that covered his muscular chest”
Breast Description “pretty firm pink breasts with their hard, dusky crowns”
Cigarettes/gaming hero smells like cigar smoke, but is never shown smoking. No gaming mentioned but there was an ominous mention of The Avengers movie. Expecting superheroes next.
Alcohol No
Town Descriptions Toy store that has a train set in the window at Christmas, Mrs. Brown’s boarding house, flower shop, new county building where the DA’s office is now located, a drive-in movie theater with restrooms and a pizza café just opened, there is an upscale motel “The one where all the movie stars live when they’re in town filming,” Sari told her. “The one with whirlpool baths and feather pillows and mini bars.” Everyone is driving to San Antonio for flights, so I’m afraid the Jacobsville airport is no more.
Gardenia Scent OW wears a cloying scent that triggers migraines
LOL detail Both the H/h dress like grandparents for their first date to the drive in:
Heroine wears “pull-on navy blue slacks topped with a blue-checked button-up shirt and a long blue vest that came midthigh.”
(Hero was) “wearing slacks and a designer shirt under a nice jacket. His shirt was blue, like hers.
Cutesy detail Jokes about vegetarians.
DP hobbyhorse You can’t get the good stuff. “Then the government steps in and says that everybody’s going to get addicted, so now you get an over-the-counter drug for pain even if you’ve got cancer,”
DP is trolling us Jacobsville is “A small town with half the retired mercs in America.”