The Kept Woman

Author: Susan Donovan
Published: June 2006 (St. Martin's Press)
Category: Romance
Rating: 6/10

This is one of those really fluffy reads for a summer day. Too bad it's the dead of winter here. I think I need cozier reads for this part of the year.

Poor Samantha Monroe is a hairstylist and single mom raising three kids ranging from rebellious teenager to toddler who refuses to use the potty. Her spineless husband left her right after getting her pregnant with the third child, realizing that he's gay and has to run off to pursue his glassblowing career. He also ducked out on over $50,000 worth of child support. Just when Samantha's life is at its worst, she gets an offer she can't refuse.

Playboy politician Jack Tolliver needs to clean up his image if he wants to run for US Senate. Apparently, he was caught "ogling a speaker's booty at a teachers' convention" and the female votership turned against him. His campaign manager, a client of Samantha's, proposes the plan to Jack. They will have Samantha pose as his fiancée and have them part ways amicably after the election. And of course, they'll compensate her very well.

Sometimes I felt like I was reading a Desperate Housewives episode. Jack was expressing how appalled he was over her three children. Within an extremely short period of time, he's accepted her family and friends! It all fell together too quickly. He changes from playboy to doting boyfriend in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, he's being a great father to the anti-potty wonder child and actually weaning him from diapers. It was unreal, even for a romance.

Then you toss in the over-the-top enemies. A lover scorned and an unstable ex-husband with a plan for blackmail. I thought both in the book was too much. Jack's ex-girlfriend has a political news show and her goal is to bring down Jack Tolliver because he embarrassed her at an awards show. But now he's on perfect behavior and ready to settle down with some hairdresser with three brats. The ex-husband decides to blackmail Samantha, threatening to reveal the nature of her relationship with Jack, even though it's real at that point. He knows this as well and demands that she pay up and break up with Jack for real.

At least Samantha wasn't a flake. She didn't get stupid until the end when she paid the blackmail money and wouldn't tell Jack what was wrong and why she suddenly wants to break up with him. That aggravated me to no end, and the truth came out on the news anyway, so the blackmail payoff was pointless!

Everything works out; love conquers all, blah blah. Jack Tolliver winds up winning because he's the only politician who owns up to the truth, always something appreciated by me. In a perfect world, the voters buy it, but you know it'd never fly in real life. I hate politics. Maybe that tainted my view of the book.