Penny McCusker, Mad About Max

Penny McCusker, Mad About Max - Third grade teacher Sara Lewis moved to Erskine, Montana, six years ago. She fell in love with her neighbor, rancher Max Devlin, and his young son Joey, now eight years old. However, Max only sees her as his klutzy younger sister.

Sara still feels like an outsider even though she is a major subject of local pool betting at Ersk Inn where people wager on when her next accident will occur. Only Sara and her best friend Janey Walters knows that her clumsiness only happens when Max is near. Realizing she needs to move on even after he proposes a marriage of convenience for Joey's sake, Sara knows she will miss the townsfolk and her beloved. But Max closed his heart when his former wife Julia walked out on him and Joey.

MAD ABOUT MAX is an amusing, Big Sky, contemporary romance. Sara's antics will keep the audience laughing as little things seem to happen to her like breaking the glass pane window of the founding father that turns it into a big money maker since it now seems pornographic. Readers will have no patience for Max although he is a nice single father and good neighbor, but this is a romance and he needs to get with the program. Still, fans of slapstick, contemporary tales will enjoy this humorous Montana romance.

Harriet Klausner