Karen Hawkins – Talk of the Town

The first book in the Talk of the Town series, published November 18, 2008.
Genre: contemporary romance
Cover: fun
Re-read for at least the fourth time. The review is new though. This one is in my top 10 on my list of all time favourites. That means, if I would ever make a list, it would be on it.



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 fourth 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.

After going through a nasty divorce from her cheating husband, Roxie wants to be a wild woman for a change. She used to be a good girl, a good daughter, and a good wife, and look at what that did for her. A husband who cheated on her with his law partner, Larry, who looks really ugly in a pink negligee! So, a new hairdo is in order, and Roxie is going blond! Of course a new wardrobe is necessary as well, gone with the Stepford Wives clothes, she will be a hot and sexy! But before Roxie can start her new adventurous life in Paris, or perhaps the Riviera, her brother Mark shows up. Their mother has had a minor heart attack, and they are needed back home. Roxie really does not look forward to that visit at all, her mother doesn’t know yet about the divorce, and she adored Brian. Mother will also want to arrange Roxie’s life for her again, starting with her hair and wardrobe, and Roxie will have nothing to do with that. As mother will need a nurse, and she has already chased some of the Doctor’s choices away, Roxie asks her maid / housekeeper Trundie to come along, at a big raise of course. Trundie will know how to deal with Mother ...

And so, in Roxie’s red Mustang, they all journey together to Glory, North Carolina. Where Glory is promptly pulled over for speeding... by Nick, the bad guy she had a short fling with in highschool. The bad boy has turned sheriff, who could have thought that? And he is still as handsome as ever, he sure fills out that uniform nicely! And Nick, he immediately recognizes Roxy, even in her blond bombshell disguise. A navel piercing and a hint of a tattoo above her shorts he can’t wait to explore further! But wait, he can’t afford to be distracted by a woman like Roxie ... especially after what happened in Atlanta...

When Mark and Roxie come home, their mother certainly is not happy with Roxie’s new looks, and she throws a tantrum, pretending to have fainted from the shock. But threatening her with some ice water sure does the trick of reviving her. Their mother’s life is devoted to charity, and she is involved in every committtee and ladies group in town, and so it is decided that Mark and Roxie will take over their mothers duties for now. With Mark taking the bulk of them, and Roxie the hardest one. Making sure that a group of elderly people of the nursing home get some fresh air and get out of their rooms every day. Rose, the leader of the group, and Clara, who is a great aunt to Nick, and CJ, an elderly man, have formed the Murder Mystery Club, and all they really want to do is sit around watching CSI reruns, and especially that handsome Gill Griffin ...

But where does Roxie finds a real mystery for them to investigate? Nothing ever happens in Glory, the only suspicious death was that of old Doyle, who was run over in front of the Pigly Wigly store. But the group jumps on the case, they still use Doyle’s old room at the nursery home for their club meetings. And for other recreative activities ... which might not be legal at all ... But Roxie doesn’t know that, and she enjoys being with the feisty oldsters. Until they find a box of black mail notes under Doyle’s bed, and there might be a motive for murder in it. When Nick gets wind of it, he confiscates the box, to the dismay of Roxie and his aunt, who really wanted to investigate the case. Surely it was not really murder, was it?

But when someone attacks Roxy in her own home, thinking she still has the box, Roxie and Nick will have to work together to find the one behind it all ... but can they resist the mutual attraction between them? And do they really want to?


So, in a nutshell, you have 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 loved her spunk, and how she made Roxie go out to her to a dive to have some fun! 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.

If you like humor in your contemporary romance, you really need to read this book. I was not as delighted with the second book in the series as I am with this one. Anna Cade, I think you will love this one.

10 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian