All Caught Up

The lead characters in Shaw’s new contemporary primarily fall victim to her unsubtle plotting. Widower Robert Rankin, an NHL hockey player turned successful suspense writer, calls Croft Connections to arrange a date for his brother’s pre-wedding party. Jasmine Croft finds Robert rude and difficult, but through a series of unlikely events she becomes his date for the weekend. Robert quickly comes to adore her even as the ghost of his materialistic dead wife lingers. Jasmine soon realizes he’s a good man, but frets that a former sports star must be a philanderer. They begin to date but things turn ugly late in the story, when a melodramatic incident and its aftermath overwhelm the narrative and underwhelm the reader. Shaw relies heavily on one person’s meddling to hinder the couple and move the story, never providing real obstacles to Jasmine and Robert’s inevitable happy ending. (Nov.)