I'm in No Mood for Love

October 1, 2006
In this uninspired follow up to Sex, Lies and Online Dating, Gibson layers cliche upon cliche and tops her confection with a heavy frosting of exposition. The result is a tale more sickly than sweet, filled with characters as lively as the figurines atop a wedding cake. The heroine, romance writer Clare Wingate, is your typical good girl who's itching to go bad, and globe-trotting reporter Sebastian Vaughan, a man's man who hates to see a woman cry (almost as much as he hates shopping), is the one person who can draw out her naughty side. Readers may detect a whiff of romantic tension after a less-than-shocking revelation-involving Clare's fiance Lonny, who's got a thing for pastels and a skill for flower arranging-leads a distraught Clare to a drunken encounter with Sebastian. But once Lonny is out of the picture, and commitment-phobic Sebastian agrees to become Clare's friend-with-benefits, the story spins its wheels waiting for Sebastian to realize his true feelings for Clare.

October 23, 2006
In this uninspired follow up to Sex, Lies and Online Dating, Gibson layers cliché upon cliché and tops her confection with a heavy frosting of exposition. The result is a tale more sickly than sweet, filled with characters as lively as the figurines atop a wedding cake. The heroine, romance writer Clare Wingate, is your typical good girl who's itching to go bad, and globe-trotting reporter Sebastian Vaughan, a man's man who hates to see a woman cry (almost as much as he hates shopping), is the one person who can draw out her naughty side. Readers may detect a whiff of romantic tension after a less-than-shocking revelation-involving Clare's fiancé Lonny, who's got a thing for pastels and a skill for flower arranging-leads a distraught Clare to a drunken encounter with Sebastian. But once Lonny is out of the picture, and commitment-phobic Sebastian agrees to become Clare's friend-with-benefits, the story spins its wheels waiting for Sebastian to realize his true feelings for Clare.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2006
How's this for a bad day? You come across your fiance and the Sears repairman in the act, stand up in a friend's wedding with a smile plastered on your face, get smashed at the hotel bar, and wake up virtually naked with, not a stranger, but with your old childhood nemesis exiting the shower. Romance writer Clare Wingate is shocked and humiliated and can't remember a thing, and Sebastian Vaughan doesn't bother to enlighten her. But he's back in Boise, and now they can't help running into each other. He finds it ironic that she writes romances, and she finds his -commitment-free lifestyle a joke. But there's just something about him that makes her delude herself into thinking she can handle his suggestion of a friends-with-benefits relationship. Gibson's all-around great story has everything: excellent characters, amusing wit, and a real, believable romance. Gibson exceeds expectations with this terrific tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)