Hello, Gorgeous!

Gorgeous #1

by MaryJanice Davidson

They Want Her To Save The World. As If.

One minute I'm out with my sorority sisters; the next there's a terrible accident (beyond my friend Stacey's outfit) and I'm waking up in some weird clinic transformed into a human cyborg--with a mission: to stop evil and stuff. Uh, hello? I've got a beauty salon to run.

Granted, it is cool to run faster than a Ford Mustang when I need to, even if it's totally hard on my shoes. But then I have to bring in another human cyborg on the run? One who happens to be male, totally gorgeous, smart, funny--and, um, his "enhancements"?--as if!

"Davidson's over-the-top humor and raunchily funny sex scenes will delight her fast-growing cadre of fans, while Janet Evanovich fans will also enjoy Davidson's rough-talking heroine." --Booklist

Genres: Romance, Chick Lit, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Fiction, Fantasy, Humor

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

MaryJanice Davidson is an American author and motivational speaker who writes mostly paranormal romance, but also young adult and non-fiction. She is the creator of the popular UNDEAD series and the time-traveling historical fiction A CONTEMPORARY ASSHAT AT THE COURT OF HENRY VIII. MaryJanice is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author who writes a bi-weekly column for USA Today and lives in St. Paul with her family. You can reach her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

www.maryjanicedavidson.org
@MaryJaniceD

MaryJanice's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/maryjanicedav...

http://us.macmillan.com/author/maryja...

Reviews

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is like eating dill pickle potato chips. At first, yummmm, this is really great, I can't believe how funny and witty this is. After awhile, I can't believe I'm still eating these....then I stop and take a drink of something. There they are so I start again....and before I know it, they're gone. Wait there's another bag (a sequel), oh what the hell.
When foul-mouthed, rich and beautiful twenty something Caitlyn dies in an accident, a secret government agency rebuilds her and then expects her to work for them against the bad guys. Six billion dollar woman meets chick lit. Funny enough to read one sequel that I already own.

[Dianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

An almost exact copy (plot-wise)of the first MJD book -Undead and Unwed with one more sex scene.
I love the concept -at least I loved the idea the first time with the Betsy books. At least back then the idea of smart-mouthed, 20 something air-head getting changed without her permission (vamp vs. cyborg) was new, funny and fresh. Now, not so much.

I'm glad I didn't read this when it first came out merely three years after Undead and Unwed.

Unless you are a teen who has very liberal parents, or you are a reader who loves the comfort that this type of book will give you, you may want to take a pass.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm about half way through this one. To sum it up, it's Betsy, Queen of the Vampires in s cyborg body. But I like the story, it's just too close to the Undead books.

Caitlyn James is 24 years old and is dead. She dies in a limo accident while partying it up with her sorority sisters where the driver is doing cocaine and drinking and plows the limo into a building. Caitlyn becomes the "guinea pig" for a government agency called OSF where they turn her into a cyborg. She is now the equivelant to the Terminator, complete with the strength and annoying computer "screen" on the lens of her eye. but like Betsy, she has kept her human side of wanting to stay normal and just like everyone else. Caitlyn never asked for these people to step in and now they want to use her as the bad-ass spy to save the world from all sorts of evil and of course Caitlyn has a business to run doing hair and nails and no time to be chasing punk teenagers who spend their time in their mothers basement creating viruses that invade computers and download porn. Nope, she just wants to be left alone...so as I said, really along the same lines as Betsy, I mean it even takes place in MINNESOTA! I'm waiting for Caitlyn to run into Betsy somewhere along the way. We'll see what happens with the rest of the book...


finished the book. Turns out Caitlyn isn't the only cyborg in the mix and somebody is going around killing off the Wagner team that has been creating the cyborgs. Caitlyn is told that it is an agent gone rogue and she is to bring him in. Turns out the agent, or "The Wolf" thinks Caitlyn is the rogue cyborg and is supposed to be bringing her in. Well of course they fall for eachother,then they end up working together to find the real killer (after having raw cyborg sex) before the whole team of scientists is picked off.

Another set of witty,mouthy,talking back, ain't gonna take none of your shit heroin(e) (can never remember which is the drug spelling and which is the female hero equivalent) That's what I like about MaryJanice Davidson, I love how her females are in charge and I wish I could come up with half the smack that comes out of their mouths!! I will say that I liked Hello Gorgeous very much but it just wasn't as funny as Queen Betsy. I also found that since this one is told in 3rd person, sometimes I became confused as to who was speaking certain lines.... All in all, I still liked it very much and will be reading the second book in the series, Drop Dead Gorgeous

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good short story.
I didn't expect that story line...reminded me of a spy movie.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun romance with some mystery thrown in.

[Anna's Herding Cats · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hello, Gorgeous! Is a fairly decent read if you've got a couple hours to kill and are looking for some mindless fluff. It's rather silly and completely off the charts immature but sometimes that's just what you need. If you've liked Davidson's Queen Betsy series you'll probably enjoy this one as well. The style is pretty standard Davidson. The heroine is a little mean, a lot sarcastic and immature but gets the job done at the end of the day.

Caitlyn has basically been used as a human guinea pig by the government. Turned into a "fully functioning cybernetic organism who has retained [her] humanity", without her permission, to be used as a weapon against terrorists. So, really, in her defense I think she's pretty damn justified in being a little pissed off. She so doesn't want to be any part of the governments plans which leads to some fairly entertaining quips with the "Boss". A little bitchy. A little crass. But I do like that she doesn't just let everyone walk all over her without putting up a little fight.

"Why Mirage?"
"Because, frankly, nobody here ever knows when you'll show up for a mission. You've only yourself to blame for that one. Mirage."
"I hate you. And it's not a simple, easy hate like people hating fish. I hate you like the plague. I hate you like a famine. I--"
"Mirage, can we speed this up? You have no idea what this is costing me per minute."
"Aw, go bitch to AT&T. Listen, there were just a few tiny details you forgot to share with me when you sent me to Paris. Paris, Texas, you big jerkoff."
He giggled. He couldn't help it. "Describe exactly what your face looked like when you found out you weren't in the City of Light. Leave out nothing."

Her new mission is to take down the person that's killing the team behind the cyborg experiment. That leads her right to Dimitri Novakov who just so happens to be another cyborg and thinks Caitlyn's the killer! It was kinda fun to watch them trying to figure each other out and try to figure out who the real killer was. Again though the relationship was so much like Betsy and Sinclair in the Undead series. If you haven't read that series you'd probably enjoy this one a lot more since it would feel a little more original and not like such a repeat that's just had a few tweaks here and there.

The thing that really put me off in Hello, Gorgeous! was that Caitlyn kinda grossed me out from the start when she had sex to "neutralize" a computer hacker on her first mission. One of those "lets boink and then you'll be cured of being slightly evil and a pain in the ass" kinda things. Yick. I'm not a fan of my heroines or heroes being easy and using sex like that.

So it's not one that'll change the world or that had me completely captivated but it's a very quick read and not a bad bit of "junk food" reading. There are some funny moments that thankfully balance out the less than stellar/icky ones.

Originally posted at Herding Cats & Burning Soup

[Boneist · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was ok, but if I'd realised it wasn't in first person, I doubt I'd have bought it. It's also quite short, and felt a little lacking. As others have mentioned, the protagonist is a mixture of intelligent, empty-headed and just plain lucky!

In short, I was disappointed in this book. I'll read the next one, because I've already bought it, but I doubt I'll be buying any more in the series. Shame, because I love the author's Betsy books!

[Kristen (belles_bookshelves) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You’re the one I was waiting for. Even if I didn’t know it."

We have Betsy the vampire, Fred the mermaid, and Caitlyn the cyborg: all read a tad bit the same, but hey, who cares?! They're funny, sassy, sexy, and hilarious. Lead female characters who have big mouths and smart asses!

A cute, sexy read for anyone who is a fan of MJD other works!

[Alondra_aguilar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hello, Gorgeous is by far the worst book I have ever read. That being said, I am no novelist nor will I ever be. Kudos to MaryJanice Davidson for writing not one, but a series of novels. Although Hello, Gorgeous was not my cup of tea, I'm sure other readers enjoyed her novel. For me, Hello, Gorgeous was painful to read. When I first picked up the book I did not realize the novel was smut (my fault for not looking at the excerpt in the back). I'm not into smut, but I don't hate it. If used correctly, sex can profoundly enhance a story (aka Game of Thrones). In "Hello, Gorgeous" sex was really weird and awkward. In particular, I really hated the fact that Caitlyn, the protagonist, had sex with a teenaged boy before asking if he was a minor. The pedophilia gag in that scene was too much. The main reason that I disliked this book is due to the style and execution. At first, I was super hopeful for this novel. Who wouldn't want to read about a girl who's kidnapped, experimented on by the government, and becomes a cyber human? The idea behind the book is amazing. The execution was not. The jokes fell flat and the characters had no development. Ninety percent of the dialogue consisted of "no", "like", "shit", "asshole", " Dude", "O.S.F". The majority of the book was the author reminding us Caitlyn is upset and who the O.S.F. is. I would have enjoyed this novel more had the author written the story in the first person, gave all characters names (the boss is referred to as the "Boss"), and included diverse characters (Spoiler: there is no diversity).

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t care what MJD said in the Drop Dead Gorgeous Author’s Note, Hello Gorgeous does a much better job of explaining literally everything about this world and the OSF than DDG does and you should totally read HG first. I enjoyed it a lot more than DDG because I wasn’t trying to piece everything together and catch up on all the excitement I’d missed out on by not reading HG first. In fact I can appreciate DDG more for what it was now.

HG is a sugary spy novel that features a sorority girl turned stylist as the lead character so naturally she is a rather unconventional spy without the whole nanobyte thing. This book moves fairly rapidly for being just under 200 pages though it doesn’t have much of a romance factor until the midway point if you’re just looking for one of MJD’s sex scenes. Like most MJD books the focus is on character building and relationships first, big plots second. If you like reluctant heroines, steamy dreamboat men and snarky comebacks than you’ll like this book.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Unwed and Undead. The series drank me in for a few books, so when I saw this book at a local used book store it was an easy buy.

Only thing was. This was a fail. For a tiny book it took me weeks to read. The story plot starts out the same as Unwed - pretty white girl gets into a car accident and instead of dying changes.

... it was okay. If you like super chick lit romance this is for you. Caitlyn is dumb and quick with a mouth. Unsure how she runs a business - maybe shes good with numbers. Hunk is cold yet somehow super sweet and flirty and playful when Caitlyn is around.

I finished it, which says a lot, but if it was another 100 pages longer I probably wouldn't have.

Note: like someone else said. This started out really good. First 50 pages I was turning the pages quickly, then I was dragging.

[Fee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great premise and this started off with a cheery bang and a side order of sarcasm. Problem was neither the character nor the storyline ever seemed to develop. There were a lot of great elements that the author failed to delve into. Whilst there was a heap of other things that the author continued to harp on that quickly got repetitive and boring - Caitlyn and her encounters with The Boss, ho-hum tedious after their second meeting.
There was a couple of fun moments. But the lack of real plot and the tendency for Caitlyn to have way too many bubbled-headed moments, while all the male characters were extraordinarily one note did this book no favours.
So much potential - but this was a tale that quickly lost its fizz. And the large font, large paperback format cannot hide the fact that this is a short story with little real substance to it.

[Deana Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

MJ Davidson is a fabulous writer and it's a wonderful day when I stumbled into three separate novels

Story 1# so it's about this girl, Caitlyn, who's 24th birthday is being celebrated by some of her sorority sisters. Also, they weren't aware that their chauffeur had finished his coke (the kind that came in a white brick,)and was chasing that down with a lot of Cristal. The main thing was he wasn't keeping an eye on them. After the hideous wreck, a secret U.S. facility scrambled into action. When The Boss assembled The Wagner team, named after the 6-million-dollar gal. They did to Caitlyn what had been done to Jamie Wagner. But, Caitlyn had no interest in playing the part she was being cast.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting: 2004. Minnesota government research facility.
Miami hair salon and single’s apartment. Lithuanian castle.

Theme: love, trust, change

Characters:
Stacy Gwen – Caitlyn’s sorority sister, best friend, party friend. She is very happy when she finds out Caitlyn isn’t dead, as the first reports.

The Boss: Gregory Hamlin, head of OSF. Intimidating, job focused.

Caitlyn James: aka Mirage : 24, intelligent, loves her parties, owns a hair salon – purchased with money inherited from parents – and she put all the rest of her large inheritance into a trust for a charity. She changes her hair at the drop of a hat… still connected to her sorority sisters. She gets taken by a secret government agency when she is all but dead after an accident, and implanted with nanobots that heal and enhance her & is implanted with some sort of environmental reader that ‘speaks’ right into her brain.

Dmitri Novakov aka Wolf – agent of some type, defusing a bomb in Berlin 8 years earlier.. He was first that the nanobots – he also refused to work for the Boss. He is handsome, reserved especially after the change.

Plot – The OSF has the technology (expensive though it is) to place nanobots to enhance the physical abilities and to read their environment – a computer screen in one eye.

When they are ready try again, Caitlyn shows up, dying from the accident she was in. When she wakes up, she is healed, she is strong, she can ‘see’ a screen that gives her readings about her environment (blood pressure, heart rate) and it interprets for her ( he is getting ready to lie)… she refuses to work for the OSF – then agrees to one job. (a nerd who is sending out computer virus’ – she is sent to neutralize him, she has sex with him, figuring that he was sublimating, and secures his promise to stop with the virus’) – but the Boss insists she’s not finished with them yet.

She is running her salon (they play mother-in-law jeopardy), knows the Boss has sent a spy… and after a month, he calls her in. When she makes it to his office 36 hours later, he wants her to stop someone who is murdering… it ends up murdering his scientists, though she doesn’t find this out from him. She says no – she reads about some in the newspaper… and the next night, at her party, the Boss shows up, and ends up hooking up with her gorgeous friend Stacey – an unlikey, but likeable pair. Then a gorgeous man shows up, asks if she works for the OSF, she says no, he leaves. But as Stacey predicts, she decides she needs to help if she can. The Boss sends her to Paris…. Texas. And when she enters her room, Dmitri is there, and reboots her (an unknown possibility – a pressure point at the base of her neck). She decides to go with him (on his private jet to his castle in Lithuania) because she’s attracted to him, because she wants to find out if he is the murderer, and because she wants to prove she is not the murderer.

He has her in psychology meetings with his mother – who likes her, and says she doesn’t think she’s guilty but you can never be sure when it comes to sociopaths (if that’s what she is ). His mom also tells her Dmitri’s history. Caitlyn questions how there could be another, when they told her that she if their first successful receiver of the nanobots that retained her humanity – what does that say about Dmitri?

They like each other, they don’t know if they can trust one another… He comes to her room that night… after some petting, she sends him away, not wanting to have sex with him until she knows for sure he is not the murderer. He is hurt – others fear and distrust him, think he’s a freak, he doesn’t want that from her.

In the morning, they hear of another murder – they rush back to Minnesota, now knowing neither is guilty – they have quick sex in the plane, though Dmitri is still holding back. He watches her confront the Boss over his relationship with her friend… and picks up when she says she won’t cry herself to sleep another night. His admiration for her is high, and he asks her what she meant – and she confides that she cried when he left her the night before – because she wanted to have sex with him but wanted to be sure about the murders first. He is relieved to find out she isn’t afraid of him… and they have sex.

He is far advanced in his abilities with the nanobots, and starts a computer analysis of the possible suspects. And they make love – not just sex. And she goes to see the boss, and his secretary isn’t there… and she puts it together… and rushes to the last scientist, who is in protective custody – but she is late, the secretary (jealous over the Boss spending time on this project, and subsequently on Stacey) has shot the last scientist, and headed over too kill her friend. They rush there with the Boss – and ala the Six Million Dollar man, Dmitri and her jump up 5 stories to her balcony (she almost misses), carrying the Boss with them. They stop the secretary in a nick of time, though the Boss takes a bullet in the shoulder for Stacey – now Caitlyn has to be nicer to him.

And Dmitiri asks Caitlyn to marry him, she says yes; she asks if he will help her with her new powers, he says yes; she agrees to live with him in Lithuania if hets central heat for the castle…

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I normally enjoy Davidson's books as quick and enjoyable reads, this one didn't live up. The premise was interesting, but the conclusion of the mystery was juvenile. There was also a scene that came perilously close to rape, and although romance novels do often push the limits, this was awkward and uncomfortable.

[Hope Tirendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this Author

I love everything MaryJanice Davidson writes. I found her books in the Library years ago and have been hooked ever since. This book was fast paced and had great characters. Another successful book. Keep writing!!

[EmmaMay · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars Silly escapist fun - this does not take itself at all seriously. Caitlyn threatens to become a little tiresome, but the book is so short, its all over and done with before she can really get on your nerves.

[Windy Skirt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Speed fluff

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish they had 1/2 stars on Goodreads! 3.5 stars

[Elizabeth Hesseltine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun little story. I enjoyed the way Caitlyn didn't get hung up on much and said exactly what she was thinking.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as entertaining as the Queen Betsy series. Very disappointing.

[Rocio Fleitas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Muy similar a la saga de Ni muerta Ni Casada.

[Emily Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encanto el humor y la sátira del libro. Amo los romances relámpago

[Claire Weglowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite series by MJ the best ones, I re read these books all the time never get bored of them, the story plot is fantastic keeps you gripped the whole way through

[DemetraP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and a little silly.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun fluff.

[Paul Close · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light but fun, worth finding more of

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novella at the end: 1 star. "Ten Little Idiots"

[Lezzie Thelez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny!

[Melissa Bilodeau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay. A quick read with a weird combination of science fiction( a girl dies and has nanometers installed in her brain so she is super human) and a romance. It is light and quick.