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Summary
Summary
From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Crusie comes Faking It , a deliciously sassy novel of intrigue, seduction, blackmail, art forgery, split personalities, and really great sex.
Meet the Goodnights, a respectable family who run a respectable art gallery--and have for generations. There's Gwen, the matriarch, who likes to escape reality; Eve, the oldest daughter, who has a slight identity problem (she has two); Nadine, the granddaughter, who's ready to follow in the family footsteps as soon as she can find a set that isn't leading off a cliff. And last, Matilda, the youngest daughter, who has inherited the secret locked down in the basement of the Goodnight Gallery, a secret she's willing to do almost anything to keep, even break into a house in the dead of night to steal back her past.
Meet the Dempseys, or at least meet Davy, a reformed con man who's just been ripped off for a cool three million by his financial manager, who then gallantly turned it over to Clea Lewis, the most beautiful sociopath Davy ever slept with. Davy wants the money back, but more than that, he'll do anything to keep Clea from winning, including break into her house in the dead of night to steal back his future.
One collision in a closet later, Tilda and Davy reluctantly join forces to combat Clea, suspicious art collectors, a disgruntled heir, and an exasperated hit man, all the while coping with a mutant dachshund, a jukebox stuck in the sixties, questionable sex, and the growing realization that they can't turn their backs on the people they were meant to be . . . or the people they were born to love.
Author Notes
Jennifer Crusie was born Jennifer Smith in Wapakoneta, Ohio in 1949. She received a bachelor's degree in art education from Bowling Green State University, a master's degree in professional writing and women's literature from Wright State University, and an MFA in fiction from Ohio State University.
Before becoming a full-time romance author, she was an art and English teacher. Her first book, Manhunting, was published in 1993. Her other works include Strange Bedpersons, What the Lady Wants, Charlie All Night, Anyone but You, The Cinderella Deal, Trust Me on This, Crazy for You, and Maybe This Time. She has received several awards including the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Contemporary Single Title for Bet Me and the RITA Award for Best Short Contemporary for Getting Rid of Bradley.
She wrote several collaboration novels including Don't Look Down, Agnes and the Hitman, and Wild Ride all with Bob Mayer, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes with Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart, and Dogs and Goddesses with Anne Stuart and Lani Diane Rich. She also wrote a book of literary criticism on Anne Rice, published under the name Jennifer Smith.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Crusie (Fast Women, etc.) takes readers on another smooth ride in her latest romantic caper. At the wheel this time is fab art forger Matilda Goodnight, whose chance encounter in a closet with cute con man/thief Davy Dempsey leads to madcap mayhem and breathless romance. He's trying to steal back the money he filched from Clea Lewis, ex-girlfriend (and possible husband killer), who had taken it right back. Tilda just wants her last "Scarlet" painting, which Clea has bought to impress Mason Phipps, her rich art-obsessed beau. It's the last of six forgeries Tilda did for Tony, her now deceased gallery-owner dad, and Tilda is determined to preserve her newly squeaky-clean reputation. Confused yet? It gets wackier, because the whole Goodnight clan and supporting cast are as enormously engaging as the loopy plot. There's Tilda's mother, Gwen; her sister, Eve/Louise, a split-personality teacher/diva; her gay ex-brother-in-law, Andrew; and her precocious teenage niece, Nadine. Add a host of shady characters and would-be hitmen, and the breezy plot thickens and puffs up like the light airy doughnuts all Goodnight women are attracted to but eventually forsake for muffins: "Muffins are for the long haul and they always taste good. They don't have that oh-my-God-I-have-to-have-that thing that the doughnuts have going for them, but you still want them the next morning." Finally, defying all odds, Crusie answers the burning questions she poses can liars and thieves fall in love, live happily ever after and stay out of jail? while confirming the dangers of dating doughnuts. (Aug. 19) Forecast: The paperback edition of Fast Women hit the New York Times bestseller list a week after publication look for Faking It to move just as fast on the hardcover side. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternate. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A raunchy, romantic comedy about art forgery, thievery, and all manner of con-artistry that's as hard to resist as one of Davy Dempsey's cons. Davy, whose older sister Sophie starred in Crusie's last outing (Welcome to Temptation, 2000), comes from a long line of scam artists. He arrives in Columbus, Ohio, to steal back his own money from ex-girl friend Clea, a charmer whose wealthy husbands tend to die under suspicious circumstances. Davy's plan is to go straight once he has the money, but old habits die hard. Born into a family of art swindlers, Tilda Goodnight is now a respectable painter of residential masterpiece murals (Botticelli in the bathroom). She's desperate to "retrieve" a painting her niece has mistakenly sold to Clea that could expose Tilda's larcenous teenage career, when she painted under the name Scarlet Hodge, the imaginary daughter of the respected primitive Homer Hodge. Davy and Tilda meet in Clea's closet while attempting their separate burglaries. Soon Davy has rented a room at the Goodnight Gallery and met Tilda's lovely, unhappy mother Gwen, her angelic sister Eve, Eve's gay ex-husband and troubled adolescent daughter, not to mention Eve's lascivious alter ego Louise. The Goodnights are a family of eccentric delights, and Crusie avoids the pitfall of portraying them as too impossibly cute or sweet: the sense of real human frailty in all her characters makes even the villains oddly endearing. As Davy helps Tilda retrieve the rest of the Scarlets, the two play a game of sexual cat and mouse that culminates in some very hot sex. Meanwhile, Gwen, who has a secret of her own, is courted both by the art patron Clea has marked as her next fiance and by the Goodnights' mysterious new Gallery boarder, whom they suspect Clea has hired as a hit man to kill Davy in this roller-coaster ride of double identities, scams, and misinformation, none meant to be taken too seriously. Perfect escapist fare: Who knew Ohio could be so much fun?
Booklist Review
Matilda Goodnight has put her days of forging art behind her, but when her niece accidentally sells one of the six paintings she did as the fictitious daughter of a reclusive painter, she fears her secret past will be discovered. Tilda determines to steal the painting from Clea Lewis, the conniving social climber who bought it. But when she sneaks into the house Clea shares with wealthy Mason Phipps, she runs right into Davy Dempsey, who is there to steal back the money Clea took from him. Sparks fly instantly between the two, and Davy offers to steal the painting for her, but he brings back the wrong one. Tilda is disappointed, but she determines to get all six forged paintings back, and Davy offers to help her. He moves into one of the Goodnights' spare apartments, and meets Gwen, Tilda's energetic mother, and single-mother Eve, Tilda's sister. Both Tilda and Davy keep secrets--she hasn't told him why she wants the paintings back, and he hasn't told her that he used to be a skilled con artist. In spite of these secrets, Tilda and Davy fall in love as they chase down the forged paintings. Cruise's fifth novel is an entertaining, fast-paced romp with a pleasing love story at its heart. --Kristine Huntley
Library Journal Review
Tilda and Davy want to get the better of social climber Clea and fall in love with each other in the process. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
