Dirty Little Lies

Rating:
Summary: Baton Barbie
Review: Ben Camaglia is a Washington DC FBI agent exiled to a small town in Kansas. When Lacie Jo Baxter the "Summer Squash Queen" is kidnapped Ben figures solving the case would get him back to DC or even Chicago or New York where he belongs

Lacie, a serial beauty queen since she was 5, manages to escape and returns home. Before she even goes up the steps of her house her mother puts a brush in her hand and a tube of lipstick (which Lacie rejects until Mom gets her the "right shade"). Lacie doesn't want to talk to Ben about the kidnapping until she tells "her public" all about it. This is where I knew I had a problem with Lacie but I convinced myself she would get better as the book progressed. Wrong.

At one point Ben described Lacie as "empty-headed, illogical, dumb as a rock, brainless, and clueless". That may seem pretty harsh. Unfortunately he was dead on. She was also self-involved, boring, shallow, and downright stupid. Her main topics of conversation were about beauty pageants, dresses, hair, make-up, beauty products. This was her whole life.

And if possible her mother was worse. She hadn't won Miss Summer Squash when she was Lacie's age because she got pregnant with Lacie. So she lived vicariously through her daughter making Lacie feel obligated since she'd "ruined" her mother's life. Remind you of anyone? Her mother treated Lacie's younger sister Dinah like dirt because she wasn't beauty pageant material.

This book gave beauty pageants contestants and pageants themselves a bad name. It stereotyped these women as vacuous, unintelligent Bimbos. I can't understand why Ben fell in love with this woman. What would they talk about after the initial attraction wore off? Lacie giving him more hair tips? And the ending was beyond unbelievable!

But I have to tell you that Ms. Lane's "Reinventing Romeo" was one of the best books I've ever read! I would definitely recommend that one but don't waste your money on this one!

Rating:
Summary: Baton Barbie
Review: Ben Camaglia is a Washington DC FBI agent exiled to a small town in Kansas. When Lacie Jo Baxter the "Summer Squash Queen" is kidnapped Ben figures solving the case would get him back to DC or even Chicago or New York where he belongs

Lacie, a serial beauty queen since she was 5, manages to escape and returns home. Before she even goes up the steps of her house her mother puts a brush in her hand and a tube of lipstick (which Lacie rejects until Mom gets her the "right shade"). Lacie doesn't want to talk to Ben about the kidnapping until she tells "her public" all about it. This is where I knew I had a problem with Lacie but I convinced myself she would get better as the book progressed. Wrong.

At one point Ben described Lacie as "empty-headed, illogical, dumb as a rock, brainless, and clueless". That may seem pretty harsh. Unfortunately he was dead on. She was also self-involved, boring, shallow, and downright stupid. Her main topics of conversation were about beauty pageants, dresses, hair, make-up, beauty products. This was her whole life.

And if possible her mother was worse. She hadn't won Miss Summer Squash when she was Lacie's age because she got pregnant with Lacie. So she lived vicariously through her daughter making Lacie feel obligated since she'd "ruined" her mother's life. Remind you of anyone? Her mother treated Lacie's younger sister Dinah like dirt because she wasn't beauty pageant material.

This book gave beauty pageants contestants and pageants themselves a bad name. It stereotyped these women as vacuous, unintelligent Bimbos. I can't understand why Ben fell in love with this woman. What would they talk about after the initial attraction wore off? Lacie giving him more hair tips? And the ending was beyond unbelievable!

But I have to tell you that Ms. Lane's "Reinventing Romeo" was one of the best books I've ever read! I would definitely recommend that one but don't waste your money on this one!

Rating:
Summary: Confusing mixture of comedy/tragedy.
Review: I was also reminded of the movie "Miss Congeniality" when I read this book--beauty pageant world turns nasty. But no one was hurt in the movie; even the violence at the end was slapstick comedy. What bothered me about the book was that the mixture of silly romantic comedy and psychological thriller didn't work. The ugly undertones and tragic climax did not fit the light "tone" of the book. And the Epilogue went right back to silliness, as though nothing bad had happened. I would have given it 3 stars up until the end.

Rating:
Summary: Fans of romantic suspense will appreciate this novel
Review: Miss Kansas Summer Squash, Lacie Jo Baxter finished her upbeat speech at the opening of Mercer's Drug Store in Klaber Falls only to have someone toss her into a car's trunk. As the vehicle speeds off Lacie Jo holds tightly onto her baton while encouraging herself by saying "Not a pushover". They stop at Whipple Farm seven miles from town with nothing in between. The buoyant Lacie Jo hits her kidnapper with her baton and escapes.

FBI agent Ben Camaglia is in exile working on doing nothing as there has not been much demand to investigate crop circles lately. Ben knows that if the incident of necessary roughness of the senator's son occurred today, he would pound the idiot even more. His first assignment in Kansas is to insure that is no future abduction of Lacie Jo occurs. The twosome are immediately attracted to one another, but neither expects anything to happen between them. That is until the kidnapper tries to snatch Lacie Jo, putting Ben in panic over the safety of the woman he loves.

Fans of romantic suspense will appreciate this delightful thriller with its congenial tidbits involving beauty contests, though the exciting story line centers on the abductions of Lacie Jo and the DIRTY LITTLE LIES behind them. Lacie Jo is a brave person while Big Ben feels like a large fish in a pond too small until his beloved is taken again. The over use of complex sentences means keeping an oxygen tank handy (periods would help) though Connie Lane provides a terse tale with amusing asides that will please sub-genre readers that this author has moved into this nest.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Fans of romantic suspense will appreciate this novel
Review: Miss Kansas Summer Squash, Lacie Jo Baxter finished her upbeat speech at the opening of Mercer's Drug Store in Klaber Falls only to have someone toss her into a car's trunk. As the vehicle speeds off Lacie Jo holds tightly onto her baton while encouraging herself by saying "Not a pushover". They stop at Whipple Farm seven miles from town with nothing in between. The buoyant Lacie Jo hits her kidnapper with her baton and escapes.

FBI agent Ben Camaglia is in exile working on doing nothing as there has not been much demand to investigate crop circles lately. Ben knows that if the incident of necessary roughness of the senator's son occurred today, he would pound the idiot even more. His first assignment in Kansas is to insure that is no future abduction of Lacie Jo occurs. The twosome are immediately attracted to one another, but neither expects anything to happen between them. That is until the kidnapper tries to snatch Lacie Jo, putting Ben in panic over the safety of the woman he loves.

Fans of romantic suspense will appreciate this delightful thriller with its congenial tidbits involving beauty contests, though the exciting story line centers on the abductions of Lacie Jo and the DIRTY LITTLE LIES behind them. Lacie Jo is a brave person while Big Ben feels like a large fish in a pond too small until his beloved is taken again. The over use of complex sentences means keeping an oxygen tank handy (periods would help) though Connie Lane provides a terse tale with amusing asides that will please sub-genre readers that this author has moved into this nest.

Harriet Klausner