WOULD-BE WITCH by Kimberly Frost

WOULD-BE WITCH needs a minor "friend full disclosure." While I don't know Kimberly all that well, we travel in the same circles. Just FYI.

A reviewer compared Frost's first novel to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, and I totally see it. Tammy Jo Trask, Frost's "would-be witch," is sassy and funny and quick to whip out the feminine wiles to get what she needs or wants.

The Trask family isn't the only family of powerful witches in the tiny town of Duval, TX-- in fact, Duval may be to witches what Cabot Cove was to murderers. There's also the Lyons family, including hunky Bryn Lyons who may be a bad ass good guy or may be the bad guy. And werwolves. And a ghost of a witch who lives in a locket. And gay vampires. And...

The story revolves around the theft of the previously mentioned locket. As luck would have it for Tammy Jo, who didn't inherit her family's serious witch mojo-- we think--, the powerful members of her family are out of town and not due back for a while. Not only that, but she's just been fired and she's dead broke and her ex-husband is all up in her grill. So it's a bad time, but it's up to her to get the locket-- and her family ghost, Edie-- back. With the help of a truly awesome kitty cat (my favorite character in the book) and the suspicious aid of Bryn Lyons, Tammy Jo gets tangled up in a dangerous subculture (for lack of a better word) as the hidden magical world of Duval spins out of control and begins to threaten the safety (and ignorance) of the town's non-magical citizens.

Frost has an excellent sense of humor-- great comedic timing. That's the best part of this book. I'm not the ideal audience for chick lit/romance. Most of the reviewers of Frost's book, both on Amazon and on her own site, say that the love triangle between Tammy Jo, Bryn, and Tammy Jo's ex-husband Kyle is "hot." I found her damsel-in-distress-ness kind of unappealing after a while, and both men in her life made me a bit squeamish. (Especially Kyle, who is wicked pushy and alpha-male-y and doesn't even believe in the ghost in the locket or all this witch stuff-- why would she marry this guy in the first place, and why the heck is she still schtupping him??)

But this book bummed me out in the way that Christopher Moore's books sometimes bum me out. I love Christopher Moore, and I love the humor in WOULD-BE WITCH. CM's books are must-reads, but their female characters are total stereotypes more often than not. Frost's writing rocks; I just wish Tammy Jo was a character I could sink my teeth into (bad vampire pun).

WOULD-BE WITCH is the first book in a series, and my hope is that as Tammy Jo develops as a character, she'll whip out her inner ocelot and start saving herself a bit more often. (And she can start by saving herself from her jerkoff ex-husband!!)

CHARLIE ALL NIGHT by Jennifer Crusie

Early romance novel from chick-lit writer.

Manhunting by Jennifer Crusie

Tom Selleck, back in the day, was a babe. No one's going to argue that point. In the early 80's, he did for hairy chests and moustaches what vintage Bruce Willis did for receding hairlines and lipless smirks. But while most of those traits continued to echo as pseudo-sexy through pop culture from that point forward (and continued to echo through my personal life as I aged and started getting involved with men lacking lips and a full head of hair), the moustache remains a signifier of days-gone-by, porn stars, and gay men.

Jennifer Crusie's book, Manhunting, a recent reissue first published in 1993, offers an affable love interest in Jake Templeton, a man who is refreshingly low-key compared to heroine Kate Svenson's high-anxiety superficiality. He's a man's man, at least at first; a lawnmowing, beer-swilling, afternoon-napping hunk of a man with one fatal flaw. He's got a moustache. A big fuzzy Wyatt Earp-sized one. And somehow, through all of her hemming and hawing about whether or not Jake is her "type," Kate never seems to weigh that in the balance. And she weighs just about everything else. Odd.

Thrice engaged but finicky Kate is a daughter of a tycoon, set to inherit the whole kit and kaboodle of his empire. But her biological-- or certainly her marital-- clock is a-ticking. Challenged by her best friend to make a plan to find a man, she books a trip to a rustic-upscale Kentucky golf lodge that sounds more like Club Med (luaus and karaoke) than your usual staid corporate resort. Mr. Kate needs to be rich, handsome, liberated, ambitious, well-coiffed-- everything Jake, the groundskeeper of the Cabin Resort, is not.

Of course, in the long run, Jake isn't who he seems to be. Ambition takes a back seat to love. Priorities are reorganized and people meet each other halfway. It wouldn't be a romance novel, otherwise.

Crusie is always good for a laugh or two. Her fast-paced and witty prose allows you to zip through her books at a satisfying rate. I've taken a few classes from her, and she's a super-tough cookie. And most of her heroines are super-tough cookies too. Kate, not so much. Min Dobbs of Bet Me or Tilda Goodnight of Faking It are much more compelling characters than Kate Svenson.

In the introduction to this reissue (which begins memorably: "Fifteen years ago, I decided to write a romance novel. I was twelve. Okay, I was forty-one, but I was young at heart. ") Crusie expresses her sentimental love for the book; it clearly tickles her. But she also identifies the book as flawed. And it is. But it surfs by so quickly that you hardly notice. Although it's impossible not to notice the prairie dog under Jake's nose-- gives me the willies, it does.

Note: Crusie has a fantastic website and a strong fan base. You can visit both here.