Thursday, June 19, 2008

By Appointment Only-Janice Maynard

By Appointment Only
Janice Maynard
Signet, Jul 2008, $14.00
ISBN: 9780451224071

In downtown Orlando, Hannah Quarles races out of a church almost knocking over passerby Morgan Webber, who thinks she is a runaway bride as she apologizes and races across the street while car horns explode. However, he reappraises his first impression when no one races out of the church. She takes something from her car and runs back into the church. He follows only to see the elderly bride Miss Beverly needing her pills due to angina. Unable to resist, Morgan is in love although two minutes earlier he would have scorned the notion of at first sight.

Morgan begins to court Hannah, but though she seems to like him too, she hides her feelings behind a veneer of cynical acerbic humor. Eventually he gets her to admit she loves him too. They become engaged, but she suffers from commitment phobia so they go for premarital counseling, but will that and his love be enough to persuade Hannah not to become a runaway bride.

Tying heat with jocularity, Janice Maynard provides an engaging contemporary romance in which the hero knows what he wants from their first nudging encounter while the heroine fears what she wants. These two protagonists, supported by a strong secondary cast mostly the energetic geriatric generation, make for a fun time in Orlando.

Harriet Klausner

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