Tamara Leigh, Perfecting Kate

Perfecting Kate

Tamara Leigh

Multnomah, January 2007. $12.99

ISBN 1590529278

Twenty-nine year old Katherine Mae Meadows and her housemate Maia are stopped on the streets of San Francisco and asked if they would like a make over as part of a future issue of Changes Magazine. Kate agrees because the transformer is kissable hunk Michael Palmer. She may have said no to agreeing if she knew Dr. Clive Alexander would run the make over like a drill instructor, and she the new "big project" recruit he must mode.

As he remakes Kate, they go from misunderstanding one another to falling in love, only to go full circle back to misunderstanding one another. She attends church and prays to God; he is at best an agnostic. She thinks he loves someone else; he thinks he will write off Kate as a loss given time. She cannot give him children; he wants offspring. She thinks he is attracted to the image he made and not her; he thinks she wants Palmer or Stapleton. This pair allows their respective pasts to determine their present, which means, unless someone takes that first leap of faith they have no future, as he is still PERFECTING KATE while she wants to be the real Kate.

This is an interesting Christian romance starring a true believer and a doubter, with both having issues to contend with that prevent a permanent relationship. The storyline focuses mostly on Kate's struggles to balance the demands of her life, including her religion (her nightly Dear God journal is fascinating), but also enables insight into Clive's trials and trepidations. Though the "curing" of a gay friend seems absurd and in bad taste, as it makes being homosexual a disease, readers will appreciate Kate's efforts to be perfect.