A Loverboy

This is the last entry in Harlequin American Romance's "Century of American Romance". It is set in 1997, but since the book was published in 1991, the year 1997 is considered the future here.Lucy Beckwith is a computer systems designer who begins to receive romantic messages on her computer from "A> Loverboy". She has no clue who this is, but she begins to fall in love with this character as they communicate through her computer. At the same time, she has to contend with a new adversary at work, Jim Kazan. What will Lucy do when she finds out that "A> Loverboy" and crafty computer hacker Jim Kazan are one and the same? <p>At the same time, Jim has problems of his own. A teenage girl, Dara-Lyn Coker, has shown up in his life --and claims that he is her father! Dara-Lyn was conceived by sperm from the Mensa sperm bank. After her mother perishes in an earthquake that destroys the Watts Towers in LA (the "Big One"), Dara-Lyn jumps to the conclusion that this man who said he paid a visit to the sperm bank the year before she was born-- and who closely resembles her-- must be her real father. Jim protests that he was actually turned down by the sperm bank for being too young, but Dara-Lyn refuses to believe him. How will Jim convince her that he's not her dad?<p>I thought this story was lots of fun to read. While a few of the predictions obviously didn't come true --such as the Big One earthquake that was supposed to destroy Los Angeles-- the prediction that computers would become an important part of everyday life, was right on the money. And the new century dawns in the story on a note of hope, (no Y2K fears here). Recommended.