Review: Secret Fantasy, by Carly Phillips

With this post, I introduce my version of a mini-review, which I’ll call an egg-timer review. I have an egg timer dashboard widget, and I’ll set it for 15 minutes. Whatever I’ve gotten down at that point, even if I’m in the middle of a sentence, the review is “dunzo”, as the teenyboppers say!

Egg Timer Review of Sweet Fantasy by Carly Phillips

Lately, I’ve been doing some purchasing in ignorance, just picking up books when the cover catches my eye or the mood strikes. This one I picked up in a Target.  I now realize it’s a reissue of a 2001 category. I had seen the author’s name around, and it’s a goal of mine to get around to reading at least one of all the bestselling romance authors. It’s a mystery to me why I think popularity will track excellence in romance when I don’t think that about film or music.

To enjoy this book at all you have get over three potentially hard to swallow things:

1. Ok, you own an exclusive resort, Secret Fantasy, which specializes in SECRETLY fulfilling fantasies of your rich clientele. Your newest resident is Juliette, the Senator’s daughter who just infamously jilted her fiance at the altar, and wants to avoid the press.  Juliette’s fantasy is to be cared for and desired for who she is.

Sitting in front of you now is Doug, a Chicago Tribune reporter, who tells you that he has found out that Juliette is there and asks to be part of Juliette’s fantasy. No, not because he wants the story behind the wedding blow up — even though this is the “big get” story of the year — and he is a REPORTER, but because he wants to be the man to heal Juliette (whom he has never met). See, Doug’s fantasy is to put another woman’s needs before his own.

Do you think the owner of this resort would let him anywhere near Juliette? You have to, to get past the first chapter of this book.

2. Now, Juliette meets Doug, and — SURPRISE!! — her fantasy starts coming true, He comes on to her, wines and dines her, etc., etc.

Ok, suppose you are Juliette. You have paid thousands of dollars to have your Secret Fantasy fulfilled. And men have never in your life fallen over themselves like this for you — until they learn who you are.

What would you think about Doug’s motivations? Wouldn’t you wonder — even for a second — if his feelings were genuine? Well, Juliette never does, so that’s a second thing you have to get past to like this book.

3. Lest you think Doug is a jerk (he’s using Juliette to get a newspaper story, and sleeping with her at the same time. Might seem a tad sleezy to some), he’s only doing this because his getting the story will somehow help his old man — also a newshound –  who is ill. If you ask me, the way to help my parent recover from a heart condition is not to sleep with the kind and virtuous daughter of a United States Senator under false pretenses, but I’m not from Chicago. What do I know.

If I bracketed away from those things, this book was fine. I like romances in which couples spend a lot of time together, and I like romances where the couple is romantic and sweet to one another, and, if you put aside Doug’s huge duplicity, there were a few sweet scenes.