Once Upon a Seduction by Jamie Sobrato

Skye Ellison’s day goes into the dumper when her ex-boyfriend’s landlord visits her at work and gets her fired - exactly what she needs shortly after her ex-boyfriend disappeared with her entire savings account. Then Skye learned that her ex also ripped off his landlord, the famous racecar driver, Nico Valetti. Together they decide to try track down her ex and before long they’re headed to Vegas. While Skye found Nico fun both in and out of bed, she knew they were never meant to be together – or were they?

One of the challenges for a guy trying to write romance is trying to understand out the different types of romance novels. One of the types that I’ve been trying to understand is chick-lit. I’ve read a few single title books from time to time and thought I was beginning to understand what chick-lit was all about. So when I saw the tag line, “Chick-lit, Blaze-style!” I knew I had to read it.

From what I understand, chick-lit is a book typically written in first person from the heroine’s point of view, with a down on her luck heroine. The heroine typically has some offbeat job, a collection of wacky friends and it doesn’t have the traditional happily ever after ending. Based on those characteristics, Jamie’s book isn’t chick-lit. While the heroine is somewhat down on her luck, none of these other attributes applies. On the other hand, if you judge the book by the usual Blaze romance standards, you have a very good story with an interesting heroine and hero.

Details: Blaze #237, March 2006

Bottom line: A very good book