Josie Day is Coming Home
Lisa Plumley
Zebra, Apr 2005, $6.50, 320 pp.

While performing, Vegas showgirl Josie Day notices an elderly woman in the audience choking. She leaves the stage to provide the Heimlich Maneuver, saving the woman from having her obituary reading choked to death on a martini olive. Backstage the grateful sixty-seven year old Tallulah Carlyle, who happens to sign the paychecks as the hotel's boss, thanks Josie and rewards her with a "spare" estate in Donovan's Corner, Arizona.

Reluctantly yet also gleefully Josie leaves Sin City to take over her new property, which happens to be in her hometown that she fled years ago. The townsfolk's reception remains as frozen as before with the exception of the estate's "caretaker" Luke Donovan, who wants her to leave immediately. As Luke and Josie become acquainted they fall in love, but he fears she will dump him once she knows the truth about his upper crust background and that his Aunt Tallulah cannot give away property that he owns.

JOSIE DAY IS COMING HOME is an amusing light hearted romantic starring two likable protagonists who will remind the audience of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson pillow films. The slowly changing relationship between the lead couple from "Knock Knock" jokes to love drives the storyline with Josie receiving plenty of reader empathy as the town pariah. Fans of humorous contemporary tales will enjoy Lisa Plumley's fine imperfectly together pairing.

Harriet Klausner