Jill Winters, Just Peachy

Jill Winters, Just Peachy - In Boston, bubbly optimist creative consultant Peach Kelley enjoys being Little Miss Sunshine; her friends and co-workers think she lives a charmed, golden life as she always sees the cup filled. Her upbeat outlook on life makes her popular with her peers at Millennium Gift Baskets. She is especially good at assisting others with blind dates although her own social life is nonexistent, at least when it comes to men.

Peach arranges a blind date for sad sack office accountant Dennis Emberson, a single father with a teenage daughter. She anticipates "Pig Pen's dad" to have the time of his life and perhaps even fall in love and looks forward to the post game report, but Dennis apparently vanished. Peach, accompanied by the new network administrator, hunk Adam Quinlan, begins investigating the disappearance. However, someone wants her to back off and threatens to harm her if she persists. Worse, she finds more danger with Adam at her side as she is half in love with him although he has his own woes to deal with even if he is very attracted to the animated pain in the butt and heart Peach.

Jill Winters' latest fruity tale (see RASPBERRY CRUSH and PLUM GIRL) is an amusing, romantic suspense with the emphasis on the humor and the romance. The lead protagonist is much more than JUST PEACHY as she keeps the fine tale together. Her counterpart Adam raises her hormone level while also making her concerned for breaking office fraternization rules and moreso, potentially her heart. Though Peach's Pollyanna outlook is too difficult to handle before caffeine, fans will enjoy this amateur sleuth, chick lit combination that proves this is an author for all seasons.

NAL, May 2005, $12.95, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0451215060

Harriet Klausner