Lani Diane Rich, Comeback Kiss

Comeback Kiss

Lani Diane Rich

Warner, May 2006, $6.50

ISBN: 044661579X

In Lucy's Lake, Vermont, most of the townsfolk feel former teen bad boy Dermot Finnegan is a hero who has been doing good deeds for locals from a distance. In fact, his then teenage girlfriend Tessa Scuderi has spread rumors about him being a philanthropist since he left town and her over a decade ago. Dermot actually seduced the virginity out of Tessa and then stole her 1974 Volkswagen.

Tessa never expected to see her vehicle again, let alone the rat who stole it, but Dermot is back. Now Tessa wants him to stay quiet about the white lies she spread about him. However, he becomes a hero for real when he rescues animals from the arsonist Pet's Sake pet, shop though his brother thinks he set the blaze. As more fires break out and soon murder occurs, everyone assumes, like Joe, that Finn is the perpetrator; only the woman he realizes he never stopped loving believes he is a lying rat, but not the culprit.

Though the audience will have a hard time with the reasoning that Tessa turned the town bad boy into a hero, readers will enjoy this solid secondhand chance at love romantic suspense. The storyline is fast-paced as the townsfolk believe that Finn is the arsonist; his only ally, besides the patron who sent him home, is the woman he betrayed when they were teens. Unable to stay out of his mess, Tessa, who raises her sister, investigates alongside of the man she still loves, but will never give him a second chance to break her heart.