"Interesting contemporary romance"

Nerd centerfold Hal Underwood ignores the advice of friends, family, and workers who insist he needs to shed his geek image before his software company goes public. Instead he is more concerned with the leak of information that places his firm at risk once it goes public while his mom worries that he eats and sleeps with his computer.

Pushed by his mom, sister, and especially his legal advisor as the face of the company, Hal reluctantly hires Farmington, Connecticut based Image Consultant and Media Trainer Shannon Shane to make him over. When he first sees how beautiful the statuesque Shannon is, Hal's brain melts as he prefers to make it with her, but his worst memories from high school surface. To his shock he soon realizes that Shannon has her uncertainties too as she feels no one takes her intelligence seriously, which he does from the moment she mentions Saddam.

UNZIPPED? Is an interesting contemporary romance that focuses on not judging a person by what one sees as both lead characters run much deeper than the initial first impressions. Hal is a terrific individual drooling over the six foot beauty who he assumes is outside his range while Shannon thinks the brainy computer guru has done great things way above her inane makeovers. The humorous dialogues between the couple clue the reader that this pair once they unzip the masks belong together producing hairless microhumans but fearing that their offspring would have her brains and his looks to paraphrase Einstein as she believes she is a moron and he thinks he is the centerfold of nerds.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 22, 2005