When the Lights Go Out . . .

Barbara Daly's When the Lights Go Out . . . is one of those books with silly punctuation at the end of the title. It's also pretty frustrating: 1.5 out of 5.

Blythe Padgett's roommate wants to set her up on a blind date. Blythe refuses and plans to head home when the power goes out in the city. After making the long walk home, she finds a man stuck in an elevator in her apartment building. They work together to get him out of the elevator. Once they succeed, he says he's there for a blind date with a woman on her floor, so she invites him into her apartment. Things heat up from there.

This book is from Harlequin Temptation's The Wrong Bed series. I've enjoyed many books in this series, and I know not to expect realism from the story, but this one is more implausible than most. Blythe is getting over a bad relationship, so her roommate wants to set her up with someone just to have sex. Once Blythe and Max have sex, Blythe discovers that he was her roommate's blind date. In the meantime, the couple has fallen into very serious like (if not love), even though they know next to nothing about each other.

I'm not sure if this book is trying to be zany fun, but if so, it doesn't succeed. Blythe's roommate comes across as a caricature, as does the man (not Max) who was supposed to be Blythe's blind date. But Max and Blythe aren't exactly well-rounded characters, either. There's a lot of talking going on in this book, but no one says what he really thinks. And I still don't know why Blythe and Max fall in love.

Before I had finished even a third of the book, I knew I probably wouldn't enjoy it. Most of the time I finish books I start, though, even if I don't like them. It takes an awful lot to get me to stop reading a book with no intention of finishing it. I finished this one because I wanted to be able to say that I read the whole thing.

On to something else. I went to a friend's house last night, and we had a scrapbooking party. I did three pages.

Tampa--This will be the first page in an album. I don't think I have enough photos to make an entire album about the Target Tampa weekend event, but I might be surprised. If not, I'll put it in a vacation or book signing album.

Valentine Signing--This uses the picture from the Rachel Gibson signing. I don't actually know the woman on the left; the man who took my picture invited her to join the photo because she was also at the table. So there she is. He took another photo with just me and Rachel Gibson (who is on the right, by the way), but it's not a flattering picture of either of us. I didn't have room on this layout to write everything I wanted, so I may write more on a tag and tuck it behind the picture.

Prehistoric Beauty--The photo is one of those funky pictures where your face is added to a stock head and body. I got the picture during a trip while I was in high school. I've been wanting to scrapbook this one for some time, and I finally found a cool background paper that goes well with it.

My next post will be about another Temptation author, one whose books I am enjoying.

Alyssa