Never Trust a Stra

Never Trust a Stranger is a sexy and well written romance by Kay Thorpe. Youthful Gemma, an aspiring actress fresh out of drama school, hitces a ride from Logan Telford, a veteran producer. A moneyed Logan offers penniless Gemma a weekend job pretending to be his fiance. Seizing the chance to prove her acting ability to Logan, Gemma agrees. Only she omits from thier conversation the fact that she indeed is an actress and oneday would like to hit the broadway. That revelation can wait until after the weekend! However, the weekend turns out to be fatal as Gemma gets ensnared in Logan's sexual charm. The story moves with lethal grace. Both Gemma and Logan has hard hitting, excellent dialogues. From the first encounter between them, I found Logan's attitude to Gemma to be quite brutal. I was hard pressed to swallow his insensitivity. However, Gemma had in her all the frailities and toughness of a young and independent woman. I loved them both. And I love Kay Thorpe for writing such a contemporary, realistic and sexy romance for us fans of romance novels.

It was hard for Gemma to win Logan's love. While Gemma is impressionable in her youth, Logan is cynical. Gemma is independent, but Logan fiercely so. The last thing Logan needs is a clinging woman let alone marriage. After giving Gemma a lesson in never trusting a stranger (do not ask a ride from a stranger), Logan offers her a job to masquerade as his fiance. From all her other books, I found Kay Thorpe's heros to be always concieted, arrogant and utterly insensitive to thier ladies. Logan reenforces that image. Nevertheless, although it's Gemma whose emotions I identify with, it's Logan whose sheer dynamism energizes and moves the story. It's a lusty story that redeems itself only because integrity wins over lust. And in the foot steps of integrity comes love. It's a complex story that fascinated me over the years. A story that grew in stature as I grew older with it.