AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE

Author: Jill Mansell ISBN: 9781402218330 4/2009 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: SOURCEBOOKS

Nothing could tear Lola and Dougie apart, except his mother . . . Seventeen-year-old Lola has no intention of accepting when her boyfriend's snobbish mother offers her a huge bribe to break up with him. Then Lola discovers a secret that makes her think again, and the only way she can help one of the people she loves most in the world is to take the money and break Dougie's heart. Ten years later, when Lola meets Dougie again, her feelings for him are as strong as ever. She'll do almost anything to get him back, but she can never tell him the truth. Can she overcome his bitterness and win his heart? She's attractive, persuasive, and endlessly optimistic, but even Lola's got her work cut out for her this time.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

This is a tale of revisiting the past while moving toward the future. A heartwarming, charming story, AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE will have romance readers everywhere nodding their heads in satisfaction because every romantic at heart knows that the future is shaped by what went before. Jill Mansell puts a new twist on that fact in this entertaining volume.

When Lola is young and in love with a boy whose mother definitely feels she is beneath her beloved Dougie, she is forced to accept money from said boy’s mother with the provision she breaks off her relationship with him. Lola would never have done such a thing, except for the fact that her stepfather has created an enormous gambling debt that only the bribe money will wash away. Apparently snooker is a costly vice, so Lola does what anyone would do. She takes the money.

Years pass. Lola never forgets the boy who captured her heart. She’s moved on, but her heart lags behind. One night when she is out she is approached by a man who turns out to be her father—not the father her mother has described, but her actual father. They begin a relationship and it is his interference that brings Doug and Lola closer. Whether or not the two can work things out is another matter entirely, but at least when it counts the long-lost father steps up to help Lola out.

AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE is very human. The characters aren’t at all out of reach. They do and say things that ordinary people would do or say. Realistic, flawed and endearing, they make Ms. Mansell’s book shine. I very much enjoyed reading this British romantic comedy, and I think others will, too.

Kay James