Robyn Amos: Wedding Bell Blues

Harper Torch (Paperback), ISBN 0-380-81543-5

After the death of her beloved Aunt Reggie, Moni Lawrence needs a taste of independence. Her life in the small town of Dunkin, Virginia, feels restricting. That goes double for her long-time sweetheart, Burt.

So Moni sells the flower shop Reggie willed to her, packs her bags and moves cross-country to San Diego. She manages to introduce herself to her neighbor Grant Forrest in the most embarrassing way possible -- by driving her car through his fence and into his swimming pool. In her defense, he was naked and in the middle of the street at the time. Grant takes her to small-claims court, and she convinces the judge to allow her to repair the fence instead of paying money for it.

Moni and Grant strike up a nice friendship while she rebuilds the fence, and it eventually leads to a major case of lust. But twice-divorced Grant doesn't want a relationship, so they try to keep things at arm's length. Fat chance. They eventually agree to a "friends with benefits" type of relationship, but to his surprise, Grant finds himself head over heels for Moni.

Moni doesn't admit her feelings for him, mostly because she believes he thinks her a silly woman. Men always seem to want to protect the tiny, petite Moni, treating her like a fragile doll. She wants to break that DDS - Damsel in Distress Syndrome -- but even Grant tries to tell her what she should do.

Fed up with that type of behavior, Moni pushes him away. But a crisis with Grant's parents and another with her new friend Summer and Summer's controlling and potentially dangerous ex-boyfriend puts things into perspective for both Moni and Grant. They realize that gambling on love makes a lot more sense than the alternative.

Although this book got off to a fun start, it fizzled out the farther it went along. Amos keeps tossing more and more extraneous stuff into the mix -- all of Moni's potential business plans, Grant's friend's whirlwind Las Vegas wedding, Moni's friendship with a stripper and her twin sister, Grant's difficulties planning his parents' fiftieth anniversary party (accompanied by lots of interaction with his brother and sister, as well as his two ex-wives popping up to cause him grief). All of that just bogs the story down, making the book a little on the tedious side. I nearly gave up on the book halfway through, because it failed to hold my attention.

Jen Foote

Jen Foote recently moved to central Florida, where she is a copy editor and page designer at a small daily newspaper. She is ecstatic to live an hour away from the ocean.

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