RUNAWAY BAY By Lisa Hendrix Jove Contemporary Romance March 2002 ISBN # 0-515-13264-0 {Click here to buy this book} If there's no other name in the romance world that rises quickly to the top of the genre like cream on the milk, it's Lisa Hendrix. Ms

Jackie Barnett has been working hard so she deserves the holiday she's about to embark on with her boyfriend. What she doesn't expect is his dumping her in the least expected way…by voicemail! Not only that, he dumps her on the eve of their holiday telling her she's boring and lacks enthusiasm and spontaneity. Jackie has it in her mind to cancel the whole trip, hole herself up for two weeks and hope the world goes away. But when her boss finds out she's bribed with the worst possible thing. It's not that a grant holder, Farley Phelps of the Phelps Foundation, will be at the resort too but that her biggest competitor will be too, Reade Hunter. She and Reade had both finaled in the competition for the prestigious Phelps Grant and if she wanted the grant to fund her projects she has to be there too to sway Phelps's decision on which of them got the money. So with new determination she packs her suitcase and heads out to Runaway Bay.

What happens when she arrives? To start off, her luggage is lost in transit and Jackie is forced to buy a few new things to tide her over. Reluctantly she allows the store clerk to talk her into a few revealing items, which totally goes against her conservative principals but Jackie figures she'll do anything to snare the grand from Reade, even if she has to flaunt it a little.

When Reade Hunter meets Jackie at first he doesn't know her. Really, they have only seen pictures of each other in the medical journals. He knew her as the stuffy medical type with a white lab coat, hair in a bun and nerdy glasses. But when he realizes this bombshell is really his most dreaded competitor his hormone start to rage.

Reade found himself on Runaway Bay for two reasons, 1) to grab the grand out from Jackie's grasp and 2) because his aging mother had been pestering him to take her on a holiday…since he didn't have a girlfriend and all (she's good at bribing and conniving). So what does Reade do when his mother befriends Jackie, gets very close to the Phelps AND consistently sends him off with Jackie on "errands"? Set out to teach them all a lesson of course. Yeah right!

"Runaway Bay" is almost as good as taking a holiday yourself when you read it. Ms Hendrix's descriptions of this tropical paradise makes one wonder if she was writing it on her laptop while sitting on the shore sipping pina colada's herself! Her characters are a joy to read. The sparing between Jackie and Reade is highly entertaining as they match jab for jab. The book as a whole will send you into fits of the giggles and deep sighs of contentment…sometimes one following right after the other. "Runaway Bay" is a clever and humorous relationship story combined with suspense, intrigues, whit and of course romance. Those are the sighs of contentment parts!