9-1/2 Days Review

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9-1/2 Days
Mia Zachary
ISBN: 0-373-79164-x
November 2004
Harlequin Books
Paperback
Category Romance: Harlequin Blaze

If you like firefighter stories, 9-1/2 Days is for you. If you like attorneys in love 9-1/2 Days is for you. If you like twin twist stories 9-1/2 Days is for you. If you like a really good romance where characters grow within themselves 9-1/2 Days is for you. In short, 9-1/2 Days is the kind of story that truly has something for everyone. In Mia Zachary’s new Harlequin Blaze 9-1/2 Days, she truly reaches out to the reader and involves him or her in a love story that draws on a myriad of human emotions and brings them to life.

Jordan Gregory is an attorney. But she is much more than that. She is a caring, nurturing woman with her own issues and demons that Ms. Zachary compassionately brings to life. Jordan is one of those women who grew up believing because she was fat and called unattractive, she did not deserve to be loved by anyone but her family. What almost made matters worse was that she is also extremely intelligent and was a bright star in school. Even now as a successful attorney she has not left behind her feelings of being fat and undeserving. This is made even more prominent by her sister who is a highly successful model and her cousin Keshia who seems to have men falling at her feet. Keshia is the mean spirited, vain, man crazy woman we have all met in our lives.

Because of Keshia’s intolerable taunts Jordan has told her family that she is engaged to one David Navarro. David is not only a successful attorney in Jordan’s firm, he has just come to terms with the fact that he is gay. The problem is, he never quite got around to telling Jordan. In an attempt to have David agree to pretend to be engaged to her for a week of her family activities culminating in a celebration for her grandparents, Jordan buys a copy of Fifty Fast Fantasies…a very helpful tome for creating sexual and sensual fantasies. Jordan’s first attempt at bringing one of these fantasies to life is wildly successful. She kidnaps David and has the most fabulous sexual encounter ever.

There’s just one problem. The man Jordan kidnaps is David’s twin brother Danny. And the problem with fire fighter Danny is that he doesn’t date past the 8^th date. Danny is the quintessential commitment-phobe. But there is much more to Danny.

Through Danny, Ms. Zachary takes the reader into the mind of not only a fire fighter, but also she goes further and shows the inner turmoil of one who has lost friends and co-workers. More than that, she pays tribute to the rescue personnel who were at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Danny is the epitome of those in rescue professions: always the strong one, never talking about his fears and concerns, never showing the fear and pain below the surface. Danny not only comes to life on the pages of 9-1/2 Days, he becomes a part of the reader’s life. He is not a two- dimensional character; he comes across quite real.

Ms. Zachary also accurately portrays the trials and tribulations of women who were not quite so popular in school because they did not fit the stereotype of the “pretty” or “popular” girls through Jordan. Even after losing weight and developing into a beautiful woman, when Jordan looks in the mirror she sees the little girl who stood in her sister and cousin’s shadows.

But 9-1/2 Days is NOT a sad story. The characters not only grow from their painful personal issues, but there is some truly fun humor in this story. Imagine “kidnapping” someone you THINK is your significant other only to find out they are their twin! One of the most memorable scenes is a family dinner after Danny has been with the family and now David has made an appearance. This reviewer laughed out loud after several under-the-table discussions between Jordan and Danny are brought to a halt by a family member also ducking under the table and asking if they too could join in.

Check out 9-1/2 Days, you will not be disappointed.

Reviewed by Gina
October 2004