"This one is hilarious!"

I'd been reading mysteries and historicals when I picked this book up hoping that it would be something light to cleanse my reading palate. Well, this was just the book to do it. I was laughing one minute and crying the next, my way of knowing that this one is a winner!

Dr. Marietta Dalrymple wanted to be a mother in the worst way but she did not want a husband or a father in her life. She thought about artificial insemination but it just didn't appeal to her so she advertised in some scientific magazines for the perfect man to father her baby.

At the airport, Cash Jackson or "Jax" sees an old high school acquaintance named Harold McGinty. Harold seems very fidgety and at the last minute decides not to board the plane. He tells Jax to tell the woman waiting for him that he changed his mind. Jax is a tall, good- looking man who has women falling all over him all the time. He's also secretly The Secret Stud, a pro-wrestler.

When Jax sees Marietta at the airport, even though she's doing everything she can to make herself as unattractive as possible, he is just drawn to her. When she takes him to her hotel and tells him to have at it, he just cannot believe it. After exhausting himself and her in a passionate encounter he has to leave for a gig but tells her he'll be back as soon as possible. Well, when he gets back, she's gone. He finds out that she's left a fake name.

Two months later, Jax comes home to find a very strange phone message from Harold McGinty on his answering machine. It seems that Marietta sent Harold a very large check after she finds out she's pregnant for services rendered. Jax goes ballistic. He never knew his father and he's bound and determined to have a large part of the lives of his children so he hires a private detective to find Marietta.

This is just the beginning of this hilarious story. I can't say enough good things about this one. It is vastly entertaining from the first time Marietta and Jax meet 'till their encounter on the last page. I have fast become an avid fan of Darlene Gardner and cannot wait to see what she will write next!

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted April 26, 2002

Summary

Evolutionary scientist Marietta Dalrymple views romantic love -like the myth of the monogamous male - as a fairy tale. Men are only good for procreation. And she has found the ideal candidate to satisfy her strongest biological urge - motherhood. On paper Jax Jackson has all the necessary advantages, including a high IQ and a successful career. In person his body drives her to reconsider the term animal magnetism. But in the aftermath of their passion, Jax claims there has been a mix-up; he is not the sperm supplier with whom she contracted, but an aspiring family man. The erudite professor is stupefied. Until she recognizes that she has found the wrong donor, but the right man for her heart.