Bending the Rules

May 18, 2009
Anderson (Cutting Loose
) creates a sexy, feel-good contemporary romance starring down-to-earth Seattle artist Poppy Calloway and handsome but rigid police detective Jason de Sanges. When three teenagers are caught defacing some neighborhood stores, Poppy suggests they clean up their mess and replace it with a mural. Jase, vexed by beautiful and unpretentious Poppy, scoffs at the mural idea, but his higherups agree to it and put him in charge of the teens. Poppy and Jase have met previously and seem perpetually at odds, but they can’t deny sharing a visceral and intense chemistry. After some suspicious accidents, Jase leaps to protect the woman he once dismissed as “a damn bleeding-heart liberal.” Palpable escalating sexual tension between the pair, a dangerous criminal on the loose and a cast of well-developed secondary characters make this a winner.

July 1, 2009
Poppy Calloways solution for Seattles graffiti problem is to have the guilty teens clean up after themselves, and then paint a mural on a designated wall. Detective Jason de Sanges thinks Poppy is crazy, but the mayor is extremely interested in this project, andputs Jason on Poppys committee. Poppy finds herself drawn to the handsome, brooding detective. Its just that Jakes dirty little secretthe criminal element in his own familyprevents him from forming a serious relationship, especially with someone like Poppy. A woman who always sees the glass at least half full and a man who sees the glass more than half empty make an unlikely pair in Andersens sometimes emotional, often humorous story of the redemptive power of love, a romance with unusually well-drawn characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)