Drea Rousseau is a gangster's moll. She's lived for 2 years with Rafael Salinas, a drug smuggling crime-lord, convincing him of her stupidity and her absolute devotion to him, all the while ensuring that she puts by enough money for a secure future when she wont have her looks to trade on. She thinks she has Salinas where she wants him, until Salinas makes a little deal with an assassin he hires. As a reward for a job well done, he agrees to give Drea to him for a couple of hours. Drea, humiliated and in a furious rage swears to make Salinas pay and runs away. With 2 million dollars of his money. Salinas hires the same assassin to kill her, but as the hitman hunts her down neither he nor Drea have an inkling of how radically their lives are going to change.

It's pretty difficult reviewing this novel, without giving a lot of the story away. The rest of the book follows Drea's footsteps as she chases after the money with little side trips into Salinas, the assassin's, some FBI detectives' heads and all the dull details about banking and finance you never knew and could care less about. And a miracle in the middle of the novel which sets up both characters for their ultimate redemption.

I consider Linda Howard to be a hit-or-miss author, when she's good she's unputdownable, but unfortunately has a lot of turkeys too. Considering what it is about her novels I like, I think along with the decent writing and humor I like that she creates strong characters. In fact, one of her books Cover of the Night, has a thoroughly implausible storyline - a handful of goons besiege an entire American town - I still liked it immensely because I liked the lead pair and all the sundry characters of the town.

So, where this book fails is in the premise, creating believable characters whose moral rescue and redemption the reader understands, is involved in and is rooting for. And it's even more dissociative for the reader when the hero is nameless for almost a third of the story. Drea started off as a good character, pretending to be a blond bimbette but actually a shrewd, smart woman who looks out only for herself. But I found it hard to believe that such a street-smart character fell in love, with an assassin no less, over a few hours of sex. And the hero's motivations were even less apparent to this reader. To get the two together Howard employs a spiritual/ psychic plot device which brought the book to a grinding halt for me, and I could only skim thereafter.

I guess that's about all I can discuss without going into major spoilers. The rating is so low because Howard does have some truly good romances out there.

If you are a new reader some of her better titles are Dying to Please, Cover of the Night ... hmm, I'll add more when I think of them. Dont pick up Shades of Twilight, Open Season or this one :)

I'd be the first person to tell you that crash diets dont work. In fact, my recommended tried and tested method of losing weight is calorie control. But, with me needing to lose some excess weight by the end of March and only a week to do it in I figured the GM diet/ Cabbage Soup Diet was the diet to go on. Additionally, a friend recently got great results following the same, and I'm gullible that way....

I've done this diet before and lost approx 9 lbs in 1 week (the diet says you will lose between 7-10 lbs in the week) .... and gained 5 lbs back on day 8 when I binged. And developed a 6 month aversion to apples and bananas. So, this time I knew I had to be better organized so that I wouldnt repeat myself. So, here's my notes and plans. Do note that this diet should only be followed for the recommended 7 days and not repeated in a month. Also, I dont endorse any diets, this is just a log of my experience. Please take the claims of the link above with a heavy dose of skepticism. The diet works through starvation and lowering your calorie intake, so I doubt it is healthy.

For me,

1) I knew from my previous experience that I had to plan every meal. Just because it lists fruits and vegetables thinking you can just eat them raw when hungry is misleading. My aversion to certain foods also developed because I didnt take care to have a large variation of fruits & veggies on hand. So, first, plan every meal and shop for the entire week. Also, a very important thing to remember is cook the foods you like, now is not the time to try any exotic untried stuff.

2) You are supposed to make cabbage soup which can be eaten any time of the day in virtually unlimited quantities. The cabbage soup recipe listed sounds pretty horrible. I knew I wouldnt be able to eat it, so I made my own veg soup and ate it for 4 days without getting tired of it. The recipe I followed is here. It freezes well too so if you are sick of it you can always eat it later.

3) Even though you are eating plain meals, make sure you add lots of flavour so you dont feel like you are compromising your meals. Garlic, ginger, spices, condiments are your friends and are allowed on the diet.

4) I would recommend starting it on a Saturday or when you have some days off because I experienced the most weakness on the first 2 days of the diet.

5) The diet recommends drinking 8 glasses of water. I didnt count but I drink a lot of water every day so I kept at the same.

6) My goal was to follow the diet without feeling like I am compromising on food so that after the week was over any weight would remain lost and I wouldnt binge. So, I didnt follow the diet completely but made little adjustments that I dont think added too many calories overall.

Day 1: All fruits except bananas. Your first day will consist of all the fruits you want.

Weighed myself.

Ate a quarter watermelon for breakfast. Lunch was 2 apples+2 pears+1 tsp. honey+cinnamon zapped in microwave for about a minute and a half until the juices started flowing. A great addition to this would be peaches, nectarines, any fruit which can be baked. Felt weak and light-headed during the day so in the afternoon I ate a quarter cup rice with moong dal (yellow lentils). Headache went away immediately. Some grapes around tea time and for dinner 1 small serving butternut squash soup with 5 croutons.

Reccos: Cook fruits in the microwave to whatever level of firmness you like. You can make a fruit salad, or a fruit smoothie with a dollop of non-fat yogurt. For pineapples or grapefruits - Cut the fruit into small pieces, finely chop 1 green chilly, finely chop coriander leaves. Mix together.

Day 2: All vegetables. You are encouraged to eat until you are stuffed with all the raw or cooked vegetables of your choice. There is no limit on the amount or type. For your complex carbohydrate, you will start day two with a large baked potato for breakfast. You may top the potato with one pat of butter.

Same weight as previous day.

1 Baked potato w. a yogurt topping. Ok, baked potatoes are seriously overrated, mine was mealy, maybe I baked it too long? Lunch and dinner was a bowl of chinese stir-fry. 1 cup of soup during the day. Also, drank tea (no sugar, dash of milk) with 3 digestive biscuits. Felt light-headed and and weak again during the day, but the stir fry was tasty and satisfactory. Had no cravings.

Chinese Stir-Fry: Heat 1 tsp oil in a wok. Add minced ginger and garlic and fry till aromatic. Add vegetables (bok choy, mushrooms, carrots, brocolli, french beans, tofu etc) and stir fry them on high heat for 2-3 mins. Season with soy sauce. Take off heat and add scallions and toasted sesame seeds.

Reccos: Try a tofu scramble - small amount of tofu scrambled with onions, garlic, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms. Roast/grill portabello mushrooms, onions, bell peppers and eat tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Day 3: A mixture of fruits and vegetables of your choice. Any amount, any quantity. No bananas yet. No potatoes today.

Lost 1 lb.

Breakfast was a quarter cup dry lentil prep (moong dal) with pumpkin added. Lunch was a large bowl of butternut squash soup with croutons and 2 fat-free crackers. Evening tea + 2 digestives. Dinner was a fruit salad of grapes, 1 apple, 2 pears and 2 oranges. Was very busy through the work day so did not notice any exceptional weakness or headaches as per previous day. No food cravings either.

Reccos: Vary whatever you cooked on previous day so you dont feel like you are eating the same thing.

Day 4: Bananas and milk. Today you will eat as many as eight bananas and drink three glasses of milk. This will be combined with the special soup which may be eaten in limited quantities.

Gained 0.5 lbs :(

Breakfast was 2 bananas+blueberries+almond+chocolate milk shake with a dollop of yogurt for creaminess. Had the same shake in the evening instead of tea. 2 Bananas eaten during the day. Soup for lunch and dinner with croutons. No weakness but suffered a stomach upset.

Reccos: Try different flavours of milkshakes as listed above. A variation is an Indian prep called shikran - mash the bananas a little bit, add milk to it and cardamom powder. My mom would also add sugar but I dont think it's needed. The milk to bananas should feel like eating cereal.

Day 5: You will eat beef and tomatoes. Eat two 10 oz. portions of lean beef. Hamburger is OK. Combine this with six whole tomatoes.

Same weight as previous day.

No time for breakfast, lunch and dinner was 2 cumin crusted chicken breasts (I added 1 tsp. chilli powder to the recipe because I need some heat with my food) with huge quantities of tomato relish (added pepperoncinis to recipe) as side. Chicken was delicious and very satisfying. Stomach was perfectly fine the entire day.

Reccos: I know it says hamburger is ok, but if you have problems with controlling yourself around food eating a burger without the buns can lead to some serious cravings. So, my point, dont try it. For variations on the tomatoes, try frying them like they are served in the English breakfasts. Make a virgin bloody mary. Or stir-fry beef with onions, tomatoes and black pepper powder.

Day 6: Beef and vegetables. Today you may eat an unlimited amount of beef and vegetables. Eat to your hearts content.

Lost 2 lbs.

Breakfast was 1 cup of tea with 2 digestives. Lunch was 1 small slice of meatloaf with stir-fried veggie leftovers from Day 2 and a roasted tomato-red pepper-parsley sauce for the meatloaf. Evening - I had 1 cup of coffee w. 1 tsp. sugar and 2 digestives. Dinner was a meatloaf sandwich with the remainder of the stir-fry as a side.

So, I did badly this day. It's only because while I found a really nice recipe for meatloaf, I forgot that I HATE it. So, I couldnt eat any of the nice lunch I spent about an hour prepping and cooking and had to fill myself up with the veggies. Felt weakish, though this was probably because of my disappointment with the food so added sugar to my coffee to fortify myself. And since I had a mountain of leftovers I put another small slice between bread just to make myself eat it. And unfortunately my soup got over on day 4 and I was too lazy to make any more.

Day 7: Today your food intake will consist of brown rice, fruit juices and all the vegetables you care to consume.

Same weight as previous day.

Ginger tea in the morning and evening with 2 crackers each time. Lunch was a vegetable fried rice w. broccoli, carrots, snap peas, mushrooms, bell peppers, scallions, ginger+garlic. Dinner same fried rice with a side of stir-fried bok choy with cashews. Also drank a grapefruit+orange+lemon juice in the afternoon. No after-effects or weakness or headaches or cravings. Feeling light and happy weight-wise.

Day 8:

Same weight as Day 7.

So, the net result was I lost 2.5 lbs. Yeah, I was pissed initially, the bad vibes starting on day 4 itself. But, on reflection I realise it's because I dont have much weight to lose. I'm 5'3" and 119 lbs which is normal. When I did this before I was carrying some excess weight which is why I saw the more dramatic weight loss. So, basically this just means that the amount of weight loss depends on how much you have to lose.

You know with research how even if you dont get results, it qualifies as a step forward because you just proved a theory isnt possible. Well, if you are thinking of this diet, I hope it will give you an idea if it will work for you or not.

For me I realize that instead of weight loss what I really wanted to do is tone my body. Which means getting my lazy ass off the couch and into the gym. Sigh.