Jennifer Crusie has an intriguing forward for The Cinderella Deal, calling it her first book where she decided to mute the light ironic touch in favor of letting the characters – and readers – experience real emotion. As she states: “Good stories are about hearts and minds but the heart always comes first”.
I wasn’t sure whether this would be a tear jerker or a romantic comedy with a dose of mid life crisis or what I was getting into. The Cinderella Deal turned out to be a very good story with fun characters, interesting plot, great dialogue and setting.
The Characters
Daisy left her teaching job to pursue her dream of being an artist. After four years she has depleted her savings, she still hasn’t had her first show, she can’t even get the jerky craft boutique to pay her what they owe. She lives in an older building with her cat Liz. Daisy is on the verge of panic knowing she doesn’t have this month’s rent and her dreams are looking more and more tarnished around the edges.
Daisy is one of those open hearted people that everyone feels a warm bond with. She dresses a bit eccentrically and has a penchant for rescuing beat up furniture and lamps because they appeal to her and giving cats a home even though she is not allowed pets. She is very wary of her tall handsome neighbor Linc because he drives a Porsche and moved Liz with his foot. Linc is definitely not her type!
Linc teaches history at a city university. He is ambitious and wants to write another book, but he also wants to move to a liberal arts college where he will have more time for research and writing and smaller classes to teach. He is handsome and at the moment is in between girl friends. He prefers small blond ladies who are well organized and articulate. Daisy is definitely not his type!
Other characters are Julia, Daisy’s best friend, Chickie, the put-upon wife of the lecherous dean Crawford, Evan, the rather morose professor, various students, the local vet and of course Daisy’s pets Liz, new kitten and rescue dog Jupiter. Daisy and Linc’s mothers show up to “help” with the wedding and later her father with second wife appear too.
The Plot
Linc needs a fiancee, in fact a wife, to get his dream job. Daisy needs money. See where this is going? Linc offers Daisy $1000 to pose as his fiancee for a weekend when he visits the college for his job interview. When he tried to tell the dean that Daisy broke the “engagement”, Crawford has a fit and orders Linc to go get her. They agree to marry for a year, then separate with no hard feelings.
Naturally love gets in the way although neither one realizes it. Linc is restrained, cool, not inclined to invite students to his home. Daisy is the opposite. Daisy moves all of Linc’s contemporary furniture upstairs and puts her shabby, mismatched furniture in its place. Linc hates her furniture, calls it junk. Students arrive; Linc’s mother arrives and gets terribly ill; Daisy paints the house, the furniture and pictures of Linc.
Sure, the final ending is preordained. Linc and Daisy fall in love. But how we get there is lots of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed The Cinderella Deal.
Lots of Fun, Great Weekend Read
If you’re in the mood for something a little on the light side but not all fluff, then try The Cinderella Deal. This is not highfalutin literature but it’s not junk by any stretch.
In fact I liked The Cinderella Deal so much I got more books by Jenifer Crusie!
4 Stars
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