Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

Turn left at small town secrets...

Sophie Dempsey is content living a quiet life filming wedding videos until an assignment brings her to Temptation, Ohio. From the moment she drive into town, she gets a bad feeling; Sophie is from the wrong side of the tracks and everything in Temptation is a little too right. And when she has a run-in with the town's unnervingly sexy mayor, Phineas Tucker, making a little movie turns out to be more than a little dangerous.

Yield to oncoming desire...

All Sophie wants to do is film the video and head home. All Phin wants to do is play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. They both get more than they bargained for when Sophie's video causes an uproar and the proper citizens of Temptation set out to shut them down.

Welcome to temptation...

As event spiral out of control, Sophie and Phin find themselves caught in a web of gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, and really excellent sex. All hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble...and in love.

If you have read my blog for a fair while one thing you might notice is that I don't normally do rereads. Having said that, I was browsing through the online catalogue for the library not so long ago to see if Jennifer Crusie's next book had been added to the catalogue yet when I noticed that they had this book on audiobook. You know how sometimes you just NEED a certain type of book. Well, as soon as I saw it, my immediate reaction was I need to listen to a great romance with lots of humour, and so I borrowed it.

As I mentioned previously, I had read this book before, but I had forgotten many of the details. When I think of Jennifer Crusie's books I think of smart and funny, but I don't often think of how sexy her love scenes are, or of the swearing that is in the book. I am not sure if it is because I was listening to the book instead of reading it but it really jumped out at me this time around. Now, that doesn't bother me, but when I thought about my work colleague listening to it, I did wonder how she would react. By the way, I went into work the next day after making that post and mentioned to her that I wasn't sure how she would react to it, and to be honest her initial reaction was to be a bit hurt - she asked me if I thought she was a prude. I am however glad that I did say something to her. I am not sure if she is going to give it a go but if she does at least she will be forewarned.

I loved the way that this book is never exactly what you think it is. For example, when Sophie and Phin meet it could be a straight romance novel, but then there is the body and it turns more into a mystery, but then the victim appears to be the man who died a thousand deaths, so is it really mystery. Regardless of all those things, the one thing this book is, is a really good reads.

There are laugh out loud moments, there are sexy moments, and there are the poignant moments. The narrator did a pretty good job at getting all the different tones and moods. A couple of the character's voices were a little bit weak, but other than that I have no complaints. Some of the scenes, for example at the town council meetings about the water tower and the pool game between Phin and Sophie, are comedy gold!

Now I just wish my library had more JC books on audiobooks that I could listen to again. I especially wish that they had Bet Me and Faking It, but I guess if worse comes to worse I could actually try reading a reread instead of listening to it!