This time out, we have the next to last February romance, Kelley St. John's Flirting with Temptation (Grand Central). Babette Robinson hasn't been able to stick to anything, job-wise or man-wise. But when a pal suggests she start charging for her matchmaking skills where she reunites fighting couples, she thinks she's found her calling. Until Kitty Carelle comes to her, wanting to be reunited with her ex-fiance Jeff Eubanks, the last guy Babette dated seriously. Of course, Babette can't turn down a job or a challenge like this, so she heads to Florida to try to persuade Jeff to talk to his ex. But Jeff isn't interested in a woman who dumped him a month before their wedding to run off with another man, and he's not interested in letting Babette convince him otherwise. But this pair has undeniable chemistry. To stop Babette's matchmaking, Jeff challenges her to stop flirting for a week. If she can do it, he'll talk to Kitty, though he still has no intention of taking her back. And to make it more challenging, he comes up with things for the two of them to do that seem sure to encourage flirting in Babette. Unfortunately, the romance portion of this one is very late in starting, which didn't thrill me. And Babette, while seeming to be an interesting party pal, doesn't seem a good romance novel heroine candidate. There are some very entertaining elderly secondary characters, but this one just didn't work very well for me as a romance. I'm borrowing only two and a half of Cupid's five arrows for it.
Until next time, happy reading!
