Grace, with the justified reputation of a klutz, had the misfortune of teaching in the town where she grew up, where no one let her forget her mistakes: from using the word erection instead of election in front of her class of college freshmen, to her long-ago day of graduation, when she walked up to make her valedictorian speech with her dress and gown stuffed in her pantyhose. But this day, in particular, she had to turn down a dinner invitation from her friend Julia to give her parents' new renter a key before her five-thirty lecture. With her luck running about par, she reached over to the porch to grab a cup that was just sitting there, and embarrassingly fell on her head into the bushes. With a witness, of course. The witness, Ren Morello, was the new tenant, the new Police Chief and incidentally, serious eye candy. Grace gave him a walk-thru of the house, but he was paying more attention to her curvy backside than to the residence. After she got so embarrassed from being witnessed falling down, it was only payback that she caught him staring with great interest at her backside. Actually, she had done some observing on her own, and really liked the way that denim hugged some of Ren's very disturbing assets.

Ren was the new Chief of Police. He could handle just about anything, and he sure had no problem handling it when Grace tripped on the stairs and all of those soft, generous woman curves ending up all over him. He didn't mind she knocked him flat on his back and nearly broke his nose; in fact, he appreciated her bona fide curves, and showed it by giving Grace a smack on that backside he'd been admiring. It was the perfectly awful ending to Grace's perfectly awful day-except it wasn't over. Her ex-fiancŽ had to show up at her house across the street to make the day even worse, just to announce he was going to be teaching at the University while on sabbatical. Perfect.

And guess who came across the street with a pizza and an attitude to chase off that ex when he wouldn't leave? (It's nice to have your own private police force living across the street.) But Grace had more serious problems to deal with: who was it who broke into Grace's house, knocked out her screen and busted out her window? Who was it who broke into her office at school? And what were they looking for? Did this crime have any correlation with how her ex took off with her research six years before and published it under his own name, snatching the tenure track right from under her nose? And why is her friend Julia so reticent about men? And what is this obsession Grace's brother Gabriel has?

In this Contemporary Romance, Melissa Schroeder does a wonderful job of drawing the developing relationship between awkward bookish Grace and the once divorced-twice shy Ren, as well as revealing the unfolding of another relationship between Gabriel and Julia. Here are hearts and flowers (and four Quills) for the Hero and Heroine, and watch the bad guy go down. Kudos to Ms. Schroeder for a job well done.

Reviewed By: Allie B
(c) August 2004