Karen Hawkins – Talk of the Town

The first book in the Talk of the Town series, published November 2008.


Do Blondes Have More Fun?
Newly divorced Roxie Treymayne is dying to find out. After years of being the perfect Southern lady, all she ended up with was a cheating husband. So she goes bombshell blond, gets a provocatively placed tattoo, and prepares to live it up as a Bad Girl. But then her mother falls ill...and Roxie is forced to return to Glory, North Carolina.
He'd Love to Know.
Once the town bad boy, Nick Sheppard is now Glory's highly respected sheriff. When the hot blonde he stops for speeding turns out to be formerly prim Homecoming Queen Roxanne Treymayne, Nick doesn't quite know where to look -- though he'd like a much closer one at the tattoo peeking from her shorts.
But It Takes Two to Tango.
Roxie and Nick had a steamy fling in high school, but a love affair between a Southern princess and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks was doomed from the start. Now they have a second chance. Can they get it right? Or will they just end up... the talk of the town?


It’s the third time I have read this book, and I still love it. It is so full of humor, and fun, and there is the sizzling hot attraction between Roxie and Nick. Roxie wants to be a wild woman for a chance, and Nick wants it safe, no distractions from his work. And Roxie is nothing but a distraction for him, and a hot one!

And then there is the Murder Club, a bunch of very senior citizens who love CSI and especially Gill Grissom, and Roxie gets the job to take them out and about, so they do more than just watch re-runs of CSI. Her mother used to take them to the park to watch the statue, but well, that is always the same. Now Roxie’s mother has had a little heart-attack she needs to rest, and Roxie and her brother Mark have come back to Glory to take over her many charity works. To get the Murder Club up and running, Roxie invents that they could investigate the suspicious death of Doyle Cloyd some years ago. After all, the whole town knew him, and they are using his old room at the assisted living center as they clubhouse. What Roxie doesn’t know, is that they are using some more things of Doyle’s…

When they find a whole box of blackmail notes, and it appears as though Doyle was blackmailing all of Glory’s important people, the stakes are rising. Someone is desperate to stop the Club from investigating, and Nick wants to keep Roxie and the oldsters safe. One of them is his own aunt Clara, and she sure is a portrait.


So, in a nutshell, a sexy as hell Roxie, bent on having some fun, her maid Trundy, who came with her to Glory to look after her mother, who can be so nasty, no nurse wants to work for her. And that Trundy is a character apart! I keep hoping she will get her own book as well. Perhaps with the bankmanager? Roxies brother Mark, who has only a small part in this book, as the next one is his. The stupid Mayor and his bimbo secretary, the newspaper owner who might also have his eye on Roxie, and some old people who stir things up nicely.
Hell bent to get out of Glory, Roxie married Brian, an upcoming young lawyer, and became mrs. Brian, managing his house and his career, neglecting her own degree. But she certainly is not stupid. After catching him in the act, cheating on her, she is mad as hell. And after the divorce, where she cleaned him out nicely, she is intent on big changes in her life. To start with going blonde, getting a tattoo and a navel piercing! Next: Paris, or Italy, and some hot men. But when her mother gets sick she needs to get back home first. But that will only be for a short time, and there will always be Paris. She certainly is not looking for a new man in her life, but never could she have guessed she would run in her old boyfriend Nick, then the bad boy of town, now the respected town sheriff. Roxie doesn’t want to behave anymore, she wants some fun, so she goes after it, and that means Nick.


I love this book, and I will certainly read it again and again, it still makes me laugh out loud. For instance, when Tundy tells Mark about the things Roxie did when she found out about Brian. Or the showdown between Roxie and Robin, when they wore the same outfit. Nick sure had his tongue hanging out of his mouth then!
It is a delicious story, so if you want a good laugh, a good plot, and some hot sizzling attraction and a few lovescenes, you really should try this book.

I know I am rambling somewhat, but it is late, I am tired, had my first driving lesson in 17 years tonight, and have an extremely busy weekend ahead. So good night, and have a nice weekend with a good book in it.

10 stars.