Lynda Curnyn, Bombshell

Bombshell

Lynda Curnyn

Red Dress, May 2004, $12.95, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0373250576

Thirty four years old Grace Noonan is having sex with her lover when his condom breaks inside her. While she calmly considers her options if pregnant, he blithely demand she go out and buy that French pill. Grace ends their relationship as she thinks "alone again, naturally".

At work as production manager at Roxanne Dubrow cosmetics for mature women, Grace learns that the company is taking a major turn to sponsor the Roxy D line for teens. Feeling a bit (make that a lot) too old for a teen campaign, Grace still dives full throttle into the project, which brings her to Jonathan Somerfield also working the change in direction. Besides their fathers being friends at Columbia, Grace feels attracted to Jonathan, who cannot believe this amazingly beautiful thirty something is so much more mature than the picture of her at sixteen that his father has. Still with business and sires to overcome, can Grace and Jonathan find a mutual path to happiness?

BOMBSHELL is an entertaining contemporary romance starring two likable lead characters. Grace is a terrific female trying to make it in a very competitive world in which anyone over thirty is considered geriatric at best and a DOP (politically correct dirty old person) at worst. Jonathan is a solid male counterpoint to Grace especially after the shortcomings (not that silly) of her previous lover. Fans of a lighthearted romantic romp will enjoy the cosmetics war between the generations.

Harriet Klausner