Reon Laudat Wanna to Get to Know Ya

Wanna to Get to Know Ya

Reon Laudat

St. Martin's, Oct 2005, $6.99, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0312934149

In Detroit, hypochondriac C.J. Davis barges in on a man and woman conducting a business deal over a Barracuda. She outbids the hunk for the vehicle that she plans to drive in the upcoming Woodland Dream Cruise.

Not long afterward, C.J. visits Tanner's Auto repair to see if they can fix her new vehicle in a few weeks. She recognizes the owner Ethan Tanner as the man she defeated in the bidding for the Barracuda. He is attracted to her, which shocks him since he still mourns the deaths of his wife and young child on an icy road eighteen months ago. When he learns that C.J. is a long distance truck driver, he stuns her by simply saying that is cool. As his mechanics work on her car and she checks their progress, they begin to fall in love, but C.J. always pushes men away before they can get to close because she hides a deep secret that beginning in her teen year she suffered from Hodgkin's disease.

Though Ethan has his demons especially since he (and his former father-in-law) believes he caused the deaths of his wife and child by not being there on time, C.J. owns this well written contemporary romance as a unique female protagonist. Besides her gender bending job, C.J. fears commitment because of a secret she refuses to share with men and suffers from hypochondria though fans will understand why. Readers will enjoy this fun tale as two wounded warriors initially wanna get to know one another fall in love, but neither believes that is enough.

Harriet Klausner