Ally Carter Cheating at Solitaire

Cheating at Solitaire

Ally Carter

Berkley, Dec 2005, $15.00, 272 pp.

ISBN: 0425205592

Self help author Julia James targets the singles crowd with classic reference books like "Table for One". As a single woman, who enjoys her solitairy lifestyle that allows her to cheat without anyone looking over her shoulders, Julia provides first hand advice to her readers. That changes when the agent of actor Lance Collins arranges a phony photo between his client and the singles guru that he splashes in all the tabloids hinting at more than just a loving relationship.

Julia and Lance leave New York together for her hometown Tulsa where her family and neighbors assume that Lance is her fianc . When it seems as if the couple is breaking up, her relatives and friends led by Aunt Ro-Ro and her horde matchmake using the tabloids to their advantage. As Lance knows his chances as a serious actor has been flushed away while Julia's book sales leap, they fall in love. However she wonders if her beloved will desert her once he learns about her skeletons hopefully from her and not the tabloids who have found the pair quite fascinating.

This is a fun contemporary romance starring a likable eccentric cast. Her zany family wants the single Julia to pay double down rather than solitaire and believe that the Hollywood hunk is the right stud. Lance is still reeling to what is happening to his serious film career as he and Julia have become star attractions of the tabloids. With all the nuttiness going on in Tulsa, readers will wonder whether Julia will play "solitaire to dawn with a deck of fifty-one" or choose the stately handsome Lance; love or money.

Harriet Klausner