The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes (St. Martin’s Press, 2007)

Eileen Dreyer crafts a fine hero in her collaborative effort, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes. Danny James has a secret (which I won’t reveal here), but it’s a big one and one that threatens to tear him away from his true love, Dee Fortune. He’s a Charmer and a Professor rolled into one. Heavy on the charm.

STATS: He’s tall, dark, and handsome. He rides a motorcycle. And he has a 1000 watt smile.

THE LOOK:

‘Tall, lithe, and dark, his sable hair just a little too long, his leather jacket a little too worn, and his battered jeans a little too tight. In short, as wicked as sin. Especially when he smiled. When he smiled he was Dennis Quaid in Daniel Day-Lewis’s body.” With a physique to “make a grown woman weep” and cobalt-teal blue eyes, Danny James is a man hard to resist.

LEADING LADY:

Deirdre Dolores Fortune, aka Dee, is a shape shifter and doesn’t let herself become attracted or invested in men. ‘She didn’t allow it; it was too dangerous. She’d tried a few times, letting herself believe that the arousal from hormones would affect her differently than the agitation of anger or fear. She’d been wrong. She’d ended up sending two guys into therapy and another to an ashram in India. She could still hear him screaming as he ran into the night, her bra dangling from his hand after she’d shifted right there in the back seat of his Jeep. And not into anything as cute as an owl. No, she’d shifted into his mother.’

Dee considers herself the oldest virgin in North America, but when Danny James enters her life, she finds it hard to resist him. Will they be able to resist each other? Will Dee shift into Danny’s mother while they’re in the throws of passion? And will Danny run screaming, never to be heard from again?

I won’t tell!

WHAT MAKES DANNY SO IRRESISTIBLE?

His charming sense of expression? In a conversation with Dee about whether or not she’s gifted, he says,

“Are you?”

“Me what?”

“Are you gifted?”

“Why, yes, thank you. I can knit and tap-dance a little, and I’m a whiz with a block of ice and a chain saw.”

“What about…?” He let his hands drift through the air, the universal sign language for “woo-woo.”

Can’t you just picture that?

Or maybe it’s his smile. It’s bright, “all teeth and delight”. It sounds irresistible to me.

Or perhaps it’s his creative use of a feather boa and pop beads while in a stone circle on a mountaintop with Dee. He brought the whiskey and the truffles, and with Dee in her “virgin-on-the-way-to-a-sacrifice look”, he has great inspiration for being resourceful with delightful accessories.

BOTTOM LINE:

Aunt Xan brought the Fortune sisters their true loves. What this means for Dee is Danny James, secrets and all. He’s a nicely crafted hero.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Does a hero who rides a motorcycle have to have a bad boy streak in him? I’m not sure Danny James does, but the motorcycle is a nice touch. What do you think?