Must Love Dragons

September 18, 2006
A hungry, heartsick 11-foot-tall dragon takes center stage in Rowe's second paranormal tale of Manhattan's "Otherworld," fighting the loneliness of big-city apartment life with a wicked, claw-curling cybersex partner. Theresa Nichols, a winning supporting character from Rowe's Date Me Baby, One More Time
, has for the past 200 years been stuck in the body of a dragon, due to an ill-advised drink from Mona, the Goblet of Eternal Youth (who lives in Theresa's apartment, disguised as an espresso maker). In order to meet her cyberlover, Zeke Siccardi, Theresa makes a deal with the Devil, a villain torn between world domination and his hunger for love ("Yes, I am Satan, and I deserve more than empty sex"), to turn her back into a woman for her date. Zeke, however, already knows Theresa's secret—he's an ex-dragonslayer, and he's been hired to find her. When it turns out Zeke's employer, another dragon named Lynam Peressini, wants Theresa dead, Zeke does the honorable thing, vowing to protect Theresa—if he can just suppress his imperative urge to kill her. Rowe keeps her strange island afloat with snappy patter, goofy good humor and enormous imagination. Strong but strange, this is one of those love-it-or-hate-it genre-twisters that will make readers either rabid for more or ready for a good old-fashioned Regency.

Starred review from September 15, 2006
In this hilarious sequel to " Date Me, Baby, One More Time " (2006), Theresa Nichols, still stuck in dragon form, acts as interim Guardian of the Goblet. Knowing that she'll freak out the people of Manhattan if she leaves her apartment, Theresa entertains herself by having cybersex with a guy named Zeke. But now Zeke wants to meet her. Theresa wants to meet him, too, but in her present form, this is impossible, and she'll do anything, short of selling her soul to Satan, to regain her human body. Zeke Siccardi is equally determined. Now a private detective, this immortal is ready to put his bloody past as a dragonslayer behind him and become part of the modern world. Rowe's wacky secondary characters are back in full force: the shape-shifting Goblet with attitude; a lovesick Satan; Iris, the touch-me-not object of his affection; and Rivka, Satan's right-hand woman. Rowe's blissfully bizarre paranormal romance works well on its own, but libraries will want the entire series. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)