"An irreverent look at writing a book!"

Alexandra Freemar or Alix makes a deal with her mother that she will sublet a flat in England for three months and write a book. Her mother really doesn't think she can do it but she agrees albeit reluctantly. Alix has never succeeded at anything in her entire life. She's now 29 years old and feels like this may very well be her last chance to do something right.

The problem is Alix asks the opinion of too many people and ends up writing a hodge podge story with all sorts of plots and points of view. There's no rhyme or reason to the whole story. While writing though Alix meets all of her flat mates and becomes very good friends with them all.

She most especially becomes friends with Alexander Black, Detective Inspector for Scotland Yard. They first meet when Alix tries to open the front door of their building and resorts to cramming an awl in the lock. Alex catches her and thinks she's breaking into the building. Needless to say they do not get off to a good start. Still the sparks fly every time they come within touching distance of each other.

The big problem is that Alix needs to grow up enough to snap out of her destructive nature. Subconsciously she fails at everything she sets her mind to, including her relationship with her mother, her ex-husband and any boyfriends she has had along the way. She's had way too many jobs to even begin to count before she either tires of them or is fired. Will this experiment be a failure too?

All in all this was quite an entertaining read. I alternated from tears of laughter to tears of sadness. My favorite scene was the dinner party where everything went wrong and Alix even caught her hair on fire. I have never laughed so hard. Katie MacAlister knows how to hook the reader from the very beginning and not let them go until they've turned the last page.

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted March 1, 2003

American versus Englishman--will it be a war of wits, or a battle to find their hearts? Alix hasn't had much luck in her life, but a trip to London, a matchmaking landlady, and the handsome Scotland Yard detective living above her indicate her luck is about to change. Has she truly found her perfect man, or will the disasters that dog her steps destroy everything she's hoped for?

Summary

Alexandra Freemar should be in heaven--she's just been handed everything she's ever wanted on a silver plate: a three month stay in London, the time to write the book of her heart, and the chance to finally prove to her mother that she's not the miserable failure her past indicates. Free-spirited, unconventional, and able to find the absurd in almost any situation, Alix finds that heaven isn't what it's cracked up to be when fate, in the form of a matchmaking landlady who promises to fix her up with her perfect soul mate, hands her the devilishly handsome man who lives upstairs. Her perfect man? Hardly! Her perfect man is not a workaholic, straight-laced detective inspector from Scotland Yard who wouldn't recognize fun if it bit him on his (extremely attractive) behind.

Alexander Black is a man with a mission, and no one is going to distract him from that, not even the uninhibited, carefree American who personifies everything he dislikes in a woman: she belittles his devotion to work, insists on dragging him into the most unlikely of situations, exudes sexuality that makes his mouth go dry whenever he's near her, and teases him with a brashness that's utterly foreign to him. But underneath that sassy mouth and devil-may-care exterior, he senses a wounded woman who's calling out to him, and try as he might, he just can't refuse answering.