A Speedy, Fun Read

GETAWAY GIRL
Michele Hauf
Silhouette Bombshell (September 2006)
0-373-51421-2
$4.99

In this fast-paced romantic adventure novel, it’s all about speed for Jamie McAlister, a former criminal getaway driver, who is attempting to go straight in Michele Hauf’s GETAWAY GIRL. Of course, her first pick-up for the “good guys” goes horribly wrong, and Jamie ends up entangled with sexy bad guy Sacha Vital, an expatriated American living in Paris who is trying to escape the shadow of his criminal father.

I had a great time reading this novel, even though I usually prefer romantic stories with a bit more speculative twist. This is a straight-forward action-adventure novel, but Hauf handles the plot twists and turns with the same skill as her fictional Jamie steers her “bimmer.”

Jamie is a fun heroine, very chick-litty-chatty, who creates a theme song for everyone she meets. Granted, being the old fuddy-duddy that I am, I don’t know every song she refers to, but I can usually get the gist of them from the titles. The secondary characters are likewise intriguing. I was particularly drawn to Dove, the omni-sexual information broker, and Fitch, the Southern woman-of-a-certain age hacker and Jamie’s main contact for her various driving jobs.

Additionally, I enjoyed “revisiting” Paris throughout the pages of this novel. I’ve always been a bit of a Francophile, and getting to wander the arrondissements with Jamie was a treat.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a fun, fast read.

If I may go on a small riff, however, without detracting from Hauf’s read?

[RANT] There’s a small reference when the two lovers are reminiscing about their first anonymous encounter, when Jamie says in the moment after sex, “I’d thought it was the first time in a while that I truly felt happiness, as well.” What’s up with this? It reminded me of my biggest disappointment in “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,” which is that when Angel is cursed to lose his soul after experiencing one moment of pure happiness -- that one moment is after sex. It’s not that I’m a prude, or that I think that after-glow isn’t wonderful. But wouldn’t it have been nice if one rainy afternoon, while sitting on opposite ends of the duvet reading, Angel just burst into evil-Angelus?

Most of my moments of pure happiness have happened in intensely mundane moments like the one above. But, then maybe my recognition of these kinds of moments is why I’ve been in a relationship with the same person for the last twenty-one years. Of course, most romances are about first blush, not the maintenance of a two-decade (and still going!) long love. Joss Whedon, with his quirky outlook, could have pulled off an Angel-turns-bad-while-quilting moment, but I didn’t really expect one from Hauf. GETAWAY GIRL isn’t that type of book, nor should it have tried to be, but it just sparked this thought.[/RANT]