The Reread Challenge - April

Knock Me Off My Feet by Susan Donovan

It didn't. Knock Me Off My Feet. Not this time around I'm afraid. I don't know whether to disqualify myself or not for April's challenge but this ended up being a DNF the second time around.

This was the second Susan Donovan book I read and while it didn't quite measure up to my favourite - Take A Chance on Me (and now I have that ABBA song running around my head again), I did quite like this one at the time. And I don't think it's quite so much that I didn't like KMOMF as I've had a severe case of the crankies lately and when one has a case of those - it's best to move onto a comfort book.

Blurb: In Donovan's spicy debut, Autumn Adams honors her mother's deathbed wish when she takes over her role as famed Homey Helen, domestic diva of Chicago's WBBS-TV station. Coaching her mother's fans on the finer points of homemaking is the last thing Autumn wants; she'd much rather be kicking a soccer ball around a field or running a marathon. Fortunately, she has Marjorie Stoddard, her mom's faithful secretary, to pick up the slack. But Marjorie isn't much help when a twisted fan starts sending death threats in the form of grisly household hints, one of which advises her on the proper way to freeze human remains. Autumn receives protection in the form of handsome Detective Stacey Quinn, who thinks Autumn just might be the perfect woman for him. Winning Autumn's affection isn't as easy as he anticipates, however. Marjorie's bad track record with men-"It's like after seven or eight weeks some green slimy and hairy thing with eleven eyeballs suddenly jumps out of the top of my head and the men start running for the nearest exit"-may keep her from pursuing the one man who won't run away.

I can't put my finger on why this didn't work this time round - baring the case of the crankies, but at the risk of sounding like Randy Jackson, I just didn't 'feel' either the hero or the heroine. I wasn't laughing or smiling at what was supposed to be funny and both h/h seemed to blow hot and cold. One minute they were lip locked, the next they weren't speaking, all without a reasonable explanation as to what happened. Audie was described as a total klutz - doing pratfalls all over the place, but then graceful on the soccer field. One minute she was laughing, and then the next close to tears, again without a really understandable explanation as to why. I finally gave up when after ignoring her for a week - without really explaining why, Quinn sends her a box of handkerchiefs (because - you know - she cries a lot). It was at this point that I realized that I just wasn't into the book. Because of the crank's and the fact that it was a DNF, I'm not going to grade it this time - but the first time round, I gave it a 4.5.

Hopefully next month I will meet with better success.