Oh, guess what? I'm not done cleaning my room - that is always a WIP ^_^; However, I was able to find my copy of Deeply, Desperately! :P
Deeply, Desperately by Heather Webber
published by St. Martin's Press in August 2010
Lucy wants to breathe new life into her family's Boston-based matchmaking company. But how? Even though she comes from a long line of ancestors blessed by Cupid with psychic abilities, a freak accident left Lucy with only one special skill: finding things. Car keys, socks in the dryer, needles in haystacks...and now, in a stroke of professional genius, lost loves!
It's not long before Lucy's on a winning streak, helping old flames reunite and create new sparks. Business is booming. But when Lucy finds herself involved in a possible case of murder, she realizes she's in too deep. Enter Sean Donahue. Lucy's handsome fire-fighter turned private-eye neighbor, Sean is just the man she needs to help her on the job. Could he also be the man she's been looking for all along? When it comes to Valentine, Inc., falling in love is always serious business.
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Lucy Valentine, Book #2
The Story: With Christmas fast approaching, it's normal that Lucy is busy... however, a lot more is going on than just the holidays. First, Lucy has a case with Lost Loves, Valentine, Inc.'s new branch, where a widower is looking for his first love. While Lucy loves her new job and is very interested in the case, she's less than happy about reporter Preston Baily shadowing her, looking for her meal ticket to bigger newspapers. There's also Preston's questioning about siblings and family that are weirding Lucy out. Then, there's Lucy's best friend, Marisol, who is planning an intervention to stop Emma, the third musketeer, from marrying a jerk. As if all that is not enough, Sean's ex-girlfriend is back in the picture and needs his help and support. Seriously, all this is enough to drive a woman crazy :P
My Opinion: I really enjoyed Truly, Madly, the first book in the series. I thought it was cute and fluffy and Deeply, Desperately pretty much continues in the same vein. A lot is happening in Deeply, Desperately and you'd think it'd be overwhelming, but it wasn't. Everything - the relationships, the romance and the mystery - blended and balanced out each other well, providing us, the readers, with a fun and enjoyable book :)
I think the success of this series so far is its heroine, Lucy Valentine. The best word that could describe her is normal :P Really, she might be a psychic with the ability to find objects and persons, but what she wants makes her a regular person. She wants a relationship with Sean, she wants to succeed at her job, she wants her friends to be happy and her family to live in peace and harmony. All of this makes her extremely easy to relate to and thus, likable. Same goes with Sean. He's a very nice guy, caring, responsible and trustworthy. And because Ms Webber has two solid main characters, she can go crazy with the secondary characters :) I mean, Lucy's family members are definitively a hoot, especially together LOL and while she loves them, she's not blind to their flaws. And her friends? Makes me envious to see such strong friendships :) All in all, I have to say I truly enjoyed Lucy's interaction with everyone.
The romance between Lucy and Sean is progressing well. While Lucy still worries about the Cupid curse, she tries hard to make her relationship with Sean work. Actually, it was heart-warming to see Lucy and Sean together, because you have two persons that are not afraid of commitments and really want this to work out. Ms Webber throws in some conflict by bringing back Sean's ex-girlfriend. For once, I thought it worked out well, I really liked seeing Lucy fight for Sean :)
Once again, I think Ms Webber did a good job with the mystery thread in this book. The series so far has been pretty light and fluffy, but the cases are well thought out, developed and satisfying. I mean, this after all is contemporary romance, not romantic suspense, so don't go out expecting a gory murder case or for them to be the focus of the story. Still, they are worked into the storyline well and add to the book's entertainment value :)
My Grade: B+. To me, Deeply, Desperately is another winner. There was nothing that bothered me. I read it in one sitting with a huge smile on my face. It simply was fun and fluffy and I'm really looking forward to the third book, Absolutely, Positively :)
