"A winning romance"

In Haddonfield, New Jersey financial controller Corinne Weatherby puts on a show as she angrily tells her boyfriend Brendan that she will no longer see the womanizer. Her award winning theatrical family would give Corinne an Oscar for her performance. However, they do not see her act; instead inadvertently in the file room overhearing the recital is CPA Matthew "Ole" Relic. He silently applauds Corinne because he loves her.

Corinne goes to the Bahamas by herself, but Matthew soon follows. After almost dying from a bullet wound during a hold-up of a convenience store he patronized, Matthew vows to live life to the fullest and Corinne is it to him. They soon agree to have a holiday affair, but when they return to New Jersey she will go back to her true love Brendan. However, Corinne soon realizes that the kind Matthew is who see wants not the shallow Brendan. However, Matthew believes Brendan won so he plans to move elsewhere because he cannot stay where he will see the philanderer with his beloved.

Though Corinne's theatrics makes her seem immature and unsympathetic at first, readers like Matthew, see beyond the performer and find she is a caring person. Still the constant on stage shrill takes it toll from an overall delightful romance made so by the lead male character who struggles with living life to the fullest as he is by nature an unassuming individual. Wardrobe aside, between insubstantial Brendan and the deep nurturing Matthew here is no contest for any woman who wants the real thing to warm her not a statuette of some "uncle".

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 15, 2003