He sure would love to have someone to take care of…
Dr. Mike Flynn’s single mom taught him early how to cook and clean, and there’s nothing like vacuuming or doing dishes to help a guy relax. Annabelle Ronaldi is an artist without a domestic bone in her body. Since her fiance’s death, she can’t paint, and life looks hopeless.
Until the day after her sister’s wedding, when she wakes up with Mike next to her in bed, and then she’s really beside herself – because the handsome stranger is a dead ringer for her dead fiance.
After their mind-blowing one night stand, Mike is sure this is the woman he wants to take care of forever, but she acts like she’s seen a ghost. While Mike sets to work wooing Annabelle, she sets to work sniffing out the truth of the convoluted family secret that turns everybody’s lives upside down.
Mike Flynn is too good to be true. Srsly. If I could find a man that would cook, clean, and pick up after me, I might just have to say good-bye to my husband. I’m sorry, but 10 years can’t compete with a man that does all that. I have to admit, that Annabelle needs a man like that much more than I do. She’s what I would call the artistic type. A free spirit, if you will.
During her sister’s wedding, Annabelle sees a man that is the spitting image of her dead fiancé. When she wakes up in bed with him the next morning, Annabelle isn’t sure if he’s a ghost or the real thing. What are the odds, after all, that she would find a man that looked exactly like her fiancé? Annabelle soon realizes that he’s very real, he was her new brother-in-law’s best man, and he gave her the first orgasm of her life. She’s still pretty mortified, though.
Mike Flynn never thought that he would find the woman for him, but he knows that Annabelle is the one. Not only that, but she needs him. He can tell that Annabelle is the type of woman that needs someone to take care of her. Too bad he can’t take the time to get to know her. Every time he tries, they end up in bed together. Then when he tries to talk to her, she seems to avoid the whole relationship topic.
So I was really into this book at first. It didn’t start off very fast, but I liked it. Then we discover that there is a “big secret” that affects both Annabelle and Mike. Correction, Annabelle figures it out and doesn’t know how to tell Mike said secret. The whole secret plot was a bit of a doozy. Though everyone made out okay in the end, it was too pat for me.
I liked Annabelle. I can respect a woman that admits to a man that she wants him only for sex. It was how she continually reminded herself (while pushing Mike away) that got annoying. And her incessant need to think about the dead fiancé really got old. I could understand her hesitance in wanting a relationship w/ Mike, but instead of being honest about it, she either pushed him away or tried to get closer. Just think about how that could confuse a man.
I also didn’t care for the whole “taking care of her” thing. Annabelle wasn’t a helpless woman, certain things (like vacuuming and cooking) just didn’t concern her. The fact that Mike was willing to do those things for Annabelle wasn’t the problem. It was the reason he was doing it. Because she needed it.
For all my complaints annoyances, I really did like the book. There are certain things that I don’t want to get into in detail b/c they contain major spoilers. While it’s true that I liked Romeo, Romeo a lot more, this book was still entertaining.
3.75 out of 5.
This book is available from Sourcebooks. You can buy it here.
I had mixed feelings about Romeo, Romeo, but I love big Italian family stories. I’ll probably end up getting this one at the library.
I enjoyed this book. I thought the big secret was a bit silly but overall, it wasn’t a bad read.
he cooks, clean and gives orgasm? *hands raising* pick me, pick ME!
The plot seems like a nonstarter for me. I’m not sure I really see a problem here – he really, really needs to take care of someone and she has some sort of problems with all this, how?