Julie Ortolon Too Perfect

Too Perfect

Julie Ortolon

Signet, Nov 2005, $6.99

ISBN: 0451217071

Artist Maddy Mills, Dr. Christine Ashton, and Amy Baker are elated for former college roommate Jane Redding, who has written a self-help book "How to have the Perfect Life". However, they become angry when they realize Jane used the trio as classic examples of how fear can destroy your life. Angry and feeling ridiculed the threesome vow to prove little Ms. Perfect wrong by regaining the passion they lost when they allowed phobias to paralyze them.

Maddy has overcome her fears (see ALMOST PERFECT) and Christine succeeded too (see JUST PERFECT). Amy knows it is her turn to face her fear of getting lost while seeing the world. She takes work as a traveling nanny on a Caribbean cruise, but loses her job. In St. Barts, Amy gets lost. The success of her buddies leads Amy to tough it out by finding temporary work as a housekeeper to a recluse. Movie mogul Byron Parks is tired of the phoniness of Hollywood so has fled to a tropical getaway pretending to be hermit Guy Gaspar and flamboyant sexy Frenchman Lance Beaufort. The latter's flirtations leave Amy uncomfortable while the former's contact through a video intercom makes her feel good. As she falls in love with Guy, Byron reciprocates but fears how his housekeeper will react to the truth.

TOO PERFECT closes out a fun trilogy with a terrific perfect final tale starring two fine likeable individuals with mucho emotional damage. Though Amy has lost a ton of weight, she psychologically believes she is fat and unappealing to males. Byron has become so down on relationships he split himself into two "new" personalities just to deal with the new housekeeper. Readers will appreciate this wonderful contemporary romance that perfectly asks what happened to Jane?

Harriet Klausner