I'm In No Mood For Love - Rachel Gibson

Well Hello, Lovelies! This review is for Lucy. She's already read the book, so it should be interesting to see how different our takes are. I had meant to do this review last night, instead I spent the evening in the hospital and then church for Miss Beautiful's School Fall Program. Then, since I had a full day of taking it easy planned, a friend called me this morning with an emergency and needed me to take care of her baby girl. Glutton for punishment? Who, me? So, I've spent today babysitting and crying. Pain sucks, and I blame it all on old age. I still have a ton more books to review and several more in my TBR pile. That TBR pile keeps growing. I think for every book I read, I buy two more. And since it's Tuesday (and new books come out on Tuesday) and I have to go to Wally World to get a prescription filled, then I'm sure there will be at least one more new addition to the pile. It's NaNo still, and Dee is pluggin away at it, so go give her some luv will ya? Also, don't forget this months contest, Veterans and Rookies . You can click over to that post and leave your entry in the comments, or e-mail them to deeanddeedish@sbcglobal.net . And now, without further ado...

I'm In No Mood For Love by Rachel Gibson
BCC

Bridesmaid Gone Wild

What is Clare Wingate doing? One minute she's suffering in a pretty-in-pink gown she'll never wear again, and the next thing she knows it's morning...and she has the nastiest hangover of her life.

To make matters worse, she's wearing nothing but a spritz of Escada and lying next to Sebastian Vaughan...her girlhood crush turned sexy, globe-hopping journalist. Somewhere between the toast and the toss of the boquet she'd gotten herself into a whole lot of trouble.

Clare had the right to go wild-after all, she'd been knocked off her dyed-to-match shoes after finding her own fiance in a compromising position with the washing machine repairman Clearly her society wedding is off.

But Sebastian pushed all the wrong buttons- and some of the right ones, too. Clare is in no mood for love-not even for lust-and wants to forget about Sebastian and his six-pack abs ASAP. But he isn't in the mood to go away, and his kiss is impossible to forget.

I actually read this BCC before I bought the book. I liked the cover, but something kept causing me to pick it up and then put it back. Finally, I read the BCC and thought, why not? So, I did, all in all, like this BCC. That was before I read the book. Now it's just okay. It is a tad misleading. The last paragraph of it made me expect Sebastian of pursuing Clare for a relationship and perusing her hard, but that wasn't technically the case.

I had read Gibson's Sex, Lies, and Online Dating , and hated it. Okay, okay, hate is a rather strong word choice, I was just really, really, really unimpressed. But, since this isn't a review of that particular book, I'll cut to the chase - No Mood is book two in a some-what series, and if I would have been paying attention to the fact that this was the same author that penned SLAOD I probably would have missed out on a decent read, since I would have immediately put it back.

Just as the BCC says, Clare comes home from her friend Lucy's wedding and finds her fiance getting down and dirty with the repairman. Horrified, Lucy rushes back to the reception and drowns her sorrows with chamagne and then gin and tonics. Again. This isn't the first time Clare has known heartache and this isn't the first time she drowned that sorrow with booze. It's the second. And just like that first time, Clare wakes up the next morning not alone.

Only this time, the man Clare wakes up to, is none other than her childhood crush and tormenter, Sebastian. Sebastian's dad has worked for Clare's mother for the better part of 30 years, but the relationship between father and son has been basically non-existent. After losing his mother, Sebastian takes a trip to visit his father, and is shocked to find Clare, awkward and gangly as a child, all grown up and incredibly sexy.

I did enjoy this book. I liked that, to me, it felt way more like Sebastian's story than Clare's. I didn't feel Clare changed that much throughout the story, and while that's okay, I need to see growth in the characters, and I just didn't feel it that much with Clare. But, Sebastian was a whole other story. The man underwent some serious internal changes and they were all for the better. I bonded with Seb (no need for me to continue to use his full name, we are tight) and I cheered for him when his life seemed to click into place.

I'm still not a fan of Gibson's writing style. It feels choppy and forced in many places. But as, Kara Lennox says in this Romancing the Blog post , it's not so much great writing that gets a story sold, but a great idea. Like Lucy, I liked that Gibson incorporated AIDS and the scary possibility of the disease, into her story. This isn't touched upon in a lot of novels. Usually, the use of a condom in a Romance is for birth-control, and I have from time to time thought, I cannot believe you just FORGOT to use a condom and your first concern is OMG, am I preggers? You don't know where that thing has BEEN! It is ideas like this that make for a great story idea.

All in all, No Mood was an easy read. A hit, where it's companion SLAOLD was a miss. I'll give the next story a chance.

Take Care