Highland Fling

July 1, 2003
British author Fforde (Life Skills; Wild Designs) offers another comic romance that stretches the imagination just a tad. Jenny Porter, on the rebound from a romantic breakup, accepts a new job assignment in the Scottish highlands. As a "virtual assistant" for a financial executive, she is supposed to figure out why a textile mill is losing money. Almost immediately, Jenny is smitten with some of its more eccentric employees and finds herself mired in a challenging bid to save the company. Her work is complicated by a terribly handsome but equally exasperating local man named Ross Grant. Fforde's tried-and-true formula of pairing a feisty, independent woman facing a business dilemma with an attractive leading man hasn't faltered. Definitely written with the Bridget Jones's Diary crowd in mind, her latest novel should find an audience with readers who like their romances witty, lighthearted, and full of charm. Recommended for most popular fiction collections.-Margaret Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., MI

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2003
Jenny, the heroine in Fforde's latest offering, is a highly skilled and organized "virtual assistant" who, although she has never met the people she works for, manages whatever odd task is presented to her, including going to Scotland to assess the viability of a family-owned woolen mill and, if necessary, see to its dismantling. But her true skill is sorting out other people's lives, and as she becomes enamored of the place and the people, she finds herself developing innovative suggestions to keep the mill running. Having left behind a live-in boyfriend whose annoying ways become more apparent at a distance, she encounters a mystery man with animal magnetism who she finds hard to resist despite his tendency to bring out the shrew in her. In the process of doing her job, she also cooks, baby-sits, and solves the problems of the lovelorn, including herself. Although a bit more frenetic and zany than her previous efforts, Fforde's new book is stylishly entertaining and lighthearted.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)