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Screwdrivered (The Cocktail Series), by Alice Clayton
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Readers back for a third round of the bestselling Cocktail series will enjoy a madcap romantic comedy about bodice ripping and chest heaving, fiery passion and love everlasting. Plus a dash of paperwork filing and horseshi—wait, what?
By day, Viv Franklin is a tough-as-nails software engineer who designs programs and loves hospital corners. By night, Vivian’s a secret romance-novel junkie who longs for a knight in shining armor, or a cowboy on a wild stallion, or a strapping firefighter to sweep her off her feet. And she gets to wear the bodice—don’t forget the bodice.
When a phone call brings news that she’s inherited a beautiful old home in Mendocino, California from a long-forgotten aunt, she moves her entire life across the country to embark on what she sees as a great, romance-novel-worthy adventure. But romance novels always have a twist, don’t they?
There’s a cowboy, one that ignites her loins. Because Cowboy Hank is totally loin-ignition worthy. But there’s also a librarian, Clark Barrow. And he calls her Vivian. Can tweed jackets and elbow patches compete with chaps and spurs? You bet your sweet cow pie.
In Screwdrivered, Alice Clayton pits Superman against Clark in a hilarious and hot battle that delights a swooning Viv/Vivian. Also within this book, an answer to the question of the ages: Why ride a cowboy when you can ride a librarian?
- Sales Rank: #367313 in Books
- Published on: 2014-09-02
- Released on: 2014-09-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .70" w x 5.31" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 256 pages
Review
“We want to bask in this afterglow: giddy, blushing, and utterly in love with this book”. (Christina Lauren, NYT/USA Today & International Bestselling authors of The Beautiful Bastard Series, on RUSTY NAILED)
“Wallbanger is an instant classic, with plenty of laugh out loud moments and riveting characters-highly recommended.” (NYT and USA Today best-selling author Jennifer Probst)
“Fun and frothy, with a bawdy undercurrent and a hero guaranteed to make your knees wobbly, WALLBANGER will keep you up all night. In a good way. Hilarious, romantic, and compulsively readable, WALLBANGER delivers the perfect blend of sex, romance, and baked goods.” (Ruthie Knox, best-selling author of About Last Night)
Caroline Reynolds. Finally a woman who knows her way around a man and a KitchenAid Mixer. She had us at zucchini bread! (Curvy Girl Guide on Wallbanger)
A funny, madcap, smexy romantic contemporary that had me reading straight through. Fast pacing and a smooth flowing storyline will keep you in stitches as Wallbanger and Nightie Girl begin the battle of the headboard. Filled with plenty of humor, sarcasm, engaging dialogue, and well developed characters-I didn’t stop laughing till the end. (Smexy Books on Wallbanger)
About the Author
Alice Clayton worked in the cosmetics industry for over a decade before picking up a pen (read: laptop). She enjoys gardening but not weeding, baking but not cleaning up, and finally convinced her long-time boyfriend to marry her. And she finally got her Bernese Mountain Dog.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Screwdrivered
chapter one
Standing atop a lonely hill, Vivian gazed out upon the turbulent sea. Voluptuous and shapely, she cut a striking silhouette. Resembling the siren she was purported to be, she looked to the west. A dark ship appeared on the horizon, and with its sighting, her pulse quickened. Was it the dark pirate captain who haunted her dreams? A tall and fierce warrior, his face was full of fury. And passion. With just a glance from him, her loins quivered. With a touch . . . implosion.
Was it he? Returning from faraway lands and adventures she could only dream of, would he pillage and plunder her body as only he could? Would the pirate bestow upon her the treasure of his manhood? Or would he cast her aside as an empty booty?
Would he?
Would he?
Would he care for another Diet Dr Pepper?
Wait, what?
I was torn from my pirate fantasy by the nasal, weenie voice of Richard Harrison, CPA.
“Can I get another Diet Dr Pepper, please? And for the lady, another—what was it you’re having, Viv?”
“Scotch. Water. Neat,” I answered, looking across the table at the latest in a long line of blind dates. Set up by my mother, which should have been my first clue to say no and run screaming into that good night. Not that she didn’t have good taste; she’d picked a looker with Richard. Strike that—he was a looker if that’s what you were into.
Brown hair. Brown eyes. Brown chinos, perfectly creased. White button-down. White teeth. Blindingly white, actually; I was pretty sure when he smiled chimes went off. Every time a CPA smiled, a fairy got its wings?
Jesus, Viv, get a grip.
I sipped my Scotch, wincing not only at the good burn, but at the bad turn this conversation was taking. Tax laws over appetizers. Nothing like a little burrata caprese with a side of capital gains.
I’d gotten through the first twenty minutes of Current Bad Date by letting my mind wander to my favorite place, Romance Novel Central. But now even the thought of pirates marauding through my underwear couldn’t spare me from the drone of brown-brown-brown-white-white-boring.
I let my eyes wander around the restaurant, fingering the small locket around my neck. Shell-pink and ivory, the tiny cameo had been given to me when I was thirteen. A family heirloom, it had been given to me as a confirmation gift. My family was still active in the church; not so much me. Although I did love a good fish fry. With a side of guilt, thank you very much. Which was why I was here on a Friday night instead of relaxing with a good book.
Directly above my heirloom cameo was a face “framed by wisps of dark curly hair, with golden tanned skin, and sea-glass-green eyes.” This is how my mother sold me to Richard Harrison, CPA, and aforementioned weenie. I did in fact have dark curly hair, all two inches of it, and I did have green eyes. Golden skin? Well, it was tan, I’ll give her that. But what she neglected to mention was the barbell in my left eyebrow. She usually also left out the nose piercing, tongue piercing, and the tattoo at the base of my neck. When I took off my leather jacket earlier, it made Mr. Harrison cringe a bit, but he held his own. Barely five two in socks but almost five four in my favorite combat boots, I knew very well the image I was projecting—certainly one at odds with the familyfriendly TGI McGeneric restaurant he’d brought me to. All the great restaurants in South Philadelphia, and he brings me here?
Why in the world did I let myself get talked into another blind date?
Because you’re single, you’ve never been in love, and you’re Desperately Seeking Pirate?
True. I’d also take a cowboy. Or a fireman. Or an estranged prince separated from his royal bloodline by a ruthless uncle hell-bent on obtaining the throne, especially when it came along with the maiden princess from a rival kingdom, the most beautiful creature in all the land. Too bad for the uncle that the maiden had been de-maidened by said prince on a bed of snowy-white down feathers. And when the prince thrust into his lady love, her nails scored into his back like those of an eagle taking flight, a flight into passionate—
Whoa. No more Scotch.
Ten solid minutes later of listening to him wax poetic about tax shelters and Roth IRAs, I set my glass down and stared at him. I could be luxuriating in a bubble bath and inside my head with the pirate king, but I was listening to this? I was perfectly capable of finding my own dates, a fact I lectured my mother about over and over again. Though actually putting this capability into practice was a different matter; a practice I didn’t really engage in. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in dating; I was. To a point. I just didn’t have any patience for the small-talk two-step that one needed to engage in to catch a feller.
I knew that life couldn’t be like a romance novel, where someone could fall hopelessly in love with her soul mate the moment they met eyes across a crowded room.
Preposterous.
Or that you could be whisked off into a world of fantasy and excitement by a handsome stranger, instantly connect, and be in perfect sexual sync from the second his mammoth male member teased your delicate flower petals.
The idea.
Or that there was a billionaire bad boy at the head of every Fortune 100 company who was in his late twenties, six feet, three inches of barely tamed unchecked male aggression who was waiting for a tiny waif of a girl with no self-esteem and Chuck Taylor sneakers with no socks to knock him off his pedestal and change the course of his life over a two-martini lunch and a quickie in the restaurant ladies’ room.
For the record? Wearing Chucks with no socks makes your feet stink like bags of disgusting.
However. For all the ridiculous perpetuated in a romance novel, I still longed for the fantasy. The fairy tale. The wonderful give and take that occurred when two became one. So I went out on dates, met guys in bars, picked them up occasionally, and had the mostly bland, occasionally inventive, sex of the single-girl encounters. Orgasms, whether by my own hand or someone else’s, could never be discounted. So when my mother wore me down every few months about being the only one of my siblings who wasn’t married, I relented and let her set me up on blind dates.
My type and my mother’s type were as different as tuna fish and a curling iron. I liked a bad boy, and had enjoyed some a time or two. I preferred them a bit rough, tough looking. Messy hair? Yes, please. Artistic? Yes, please—musician, painter, performance artist, what have you.
My mother’s type was everyone’s type: good provider, steady, accomplished, smart, sociable at parties, and enough sperm to breed Catholic guilt into the next generation several times over.
And in this latest surge of motherly influence, no doubt spawned by the birth of her third grandchild and her wild desire to have a baker’s dozen, lately she had been setting up dates for me like it was going out of style. In the last two weeks alone I’d been out with Harry Thomson, Tommy Dickerson, and now Richard Harrison. A financial planner, a tax lawyer, and now a CPA. Same guy, same pants, same brain. Tom, Dick, and Harry? Oh hell, no . . .
“So I said to the guy, if you want to roll over all of this into a 401(k) I’ll do that, but you’d miss out on the more attractive shelter over here! So what I proposed was—”
“Dick? Can I call you Dick?”
“Actually, I’d prefer Richard, but—”
“Dick, I’m going to stop you right here. This was a mistake.”
He looked crestfallen. “Darn it all, I knew we should have ordered the chicken fingers. This berretta cheese is a little too exotic for my taste too. Let me see if I can get our waitress and—”
He held up his hand for some help with his “berretta,” and I slapped mine on the table.
“It’s not the cheese, it’s not the restaurant, it’s not even you, Dick. It’s me. I should never have let my mother talk me into this.”
“Your mother is terrific. Great assets.”
“No more asset talk. I want to be romanced; I want to be swept away—I want something special, rare, passionate, out of the ordinary!” I replied, my voice rising as I got worked up. I leaned across the table. “I want someone who will sweep everything off the table, throw me across it, and ravage me to within an inch of my life. Can you do that, Dick?” I slammed down the rest of my Scotch, meeting his eyes in challenge.
“Passionate? Out of the ordinary?” He gulped, pulling at his tie. Then a strange look came over his face. “You mean like, in the butt?” he whispered with an exaggerated wink.
Oh. My. God.
“How we doing over here?” a cheerful voice asked, and I looked up into the face of our waitress.
“Dick needs some chicken fingers.” I sighed, taking a twenty out of my purse and setting it on the table next to my empty glass. I pushed back from the table, went around to his side, and patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry this didn’t work out.” The relief was so very evident on his face it was almost comical. He started to stand, and I waved him off as I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.
Another one bites the dust. Or chicken finger, in this case.
As I shut the front door to my home, the silence was palpable. My shoes rang out dully against polished concrete, the lights low and a bit lonely. I peeled off my jacket, snickering once more when I thought of Dick’s face when I took it off. Tattoos were commonplace in this day and age, but there’s nothing like neck ink on a girl to make a guy in a suit blink. I shouldn’t snicker; he didn’t deserve total annihilation like that. Not over appetizers. I tamped the snicker down as I passed by the wall photo of my mom on my way to kitchen. “Sorry, Ma, but come on. Berretta?”
I may have snickered once more. Just the one.
Contemplating the effects tomorrow morning of having one more bump of Scotch tonight, and deciding the hell with it, I splashed a little more into a glass and leaned back against the counter. Polished concrete, like the floor. My home had an industrial feel to it: clean, uncluttered, orderly. Steel, chrome, blacks, and shades of—you know.
Along one wall was a line of pictures, all in black frames with black mattes. Spaced exactly three inches apart (above, below, and in between) were photos of my family. Five older brothers. Mom. Dad. All of us together.
It had been interesting, growing up. By the time my parents got around to having me, they were so used to football, hockey, and baseball, that into the jerseys I went, and never even entertained the idea of a dress. I wore dresses sometimes now, but they were the skintight-over-fishnets-and-combat-boots type. Courtney Love circa 1996. Without the smeared lipstick. Or the heroin.
Growing up with five older brothers meant that everyone in town saw me as one of the “Franklin Boys.” Something that became harder to lump me into when I developed serious lumps of my own when I hit puberty, but the fact that I ran around in ball caps and sweatshirts continued the myth. Following in my brothers’ footsteps also meant that I excelled at school, particularly math and science, taking calculus in tenth grade. Franklins are good at math and science, therefore as a Franklin, I was too. The hitch in the giddy-up was that I also loved art. Drawing, painting, you name it, I loved it. There’s a symmetry to drawing, an innate sense of placement and scale that appealed to my inner math geek. But between after-school sports and advanced placement college prep classes, it was a side that I didn’t have much time to explore.
And frankly wasn’t encouraged to explore. The family business was computers, and that’s what all of us were groomed for. And I followed suit—for a while.
Next to the framed pictures of my family was the single piece of artwork in the room, the only piece that was in color. Bold splashes of bright corals, cotton-candy pinks, soft curling puffs of white. April in Paris. I let my eyes follow the swoops and swirls of color, remembering what it felt like to spend my days in a studio in France. Heaven. A heaven that was a world and a computer software company away.
I pushed the thoughts aside, draining the rest of my Scotch and fumbling for my phone. I decided to bite the bullet and check my messages. There were at least three from my mother and two from an unknown number. Knowing that Mother just wanted to see how the date went, and not caring about messages from someone I didn’t know, I erased them all and headed for my bedroom.
Slipping out of my clothes and into a fluffy white robe, I made my way toward the only room in the house that didn’t have my monochromatic modern theme. I opened the door into rosy chaos.
Rose wallpaper, rose carpet—if there was a surface I could stick a rose onto, I did it. Gold candelabras too; I had plenty of those. White taper candles with romantic drips spilling down them—it was all there. My private escape. My romantic nirvana.
Soaker tub. Deep. Long. With a shelf overflowing with bubble bath gels, salts, pearls, and oils. Fragrances of lavender, geranium, and of course, rose. I flipped on the radio, tuned to the local classical station, and felt the evening fade away as I turned on the hot water. While I poured the rose-scented bubbles into the stream, my eyes zeroed in on the book I’d be finishing tonight. On the cover? Man. Strong. Fierce. Pecs. Woman. Beautiful. Swooning. Boobs.
Dropping the robe and all memories of Dick Weenie, I slipped into the perfumed water and let my world fade away.
I was sound asleep when my cell phone rang, jolting me out of a dream in which a giant shoe was chasing me down a water slide. I grappled across the nightstand, knocking over a stack of books and a water bottle, finally clutching my phone. “Hello?”
Static.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Ms. Vivian Franklin?” a man’s voice asked.
“This is Viv, yeah, who is this?” I barked, noticing the time. Who the hell called at 1:28 a.m.? “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I am terribly sorry for the time difference. It’s considerably earlier here in California.”
“Well, bully for all the granola eaters. Who the hell are you, and what the hell are you doing calling me in the middle of the night?”
“Ms. Franklin, I did try calling earlier in the evening. Did you not get my messages?”
“Five seconds, California, or I’m hanging up,” I growled.
“Forgive me for saying so, but you do remind me of your aunt.” He laughed a cultured laugh, and I frowned.
“My aunt?” I didn’t resemble either Aunt Gloria or Aunt Kimberly, and neither of them lived in California. Wait a minute— “Are you breathing heavy?” Ick, he was! “Dude, you picked the wrong chick for an obscene call—”
“Oh, no, Ms. Franklin. I just climbed up a rather long staircase, and I’m afraid the old ticker isn’t quite what it used to be.” After taking a deep breath, he laughed. “Obscene—the idea. Your Aunt Maude would have loved that.”
Aunt Maude. Aunt Maude? Ohhhh, Aunt Maude.
“As in my Great-Aunt Maude? Maude Perkins?”
“Yes, the very one. I’m sure you’ve heard this time and again in the last few days, but let me please extend to you my condolences.”
“Condolences?”
“Yes, of course, on your aunt’s passing. My firm represented her for decades, and I’d gotten to be quite fond of her in the last few years. What a remarkable woman.”
Great Aunt Maude was . . . well . . . in need of condolences?
“Okay, California, start from the beginning, including your name and why in the world you’d be calling me in the middle of the night about a woman I barely know and haven’t seen in fifteen years. And who by the way, I didn’t even know had . . . well . . . passed.”
“Oh my! You didn’t know? Well, this is all a bit strange then, isn’t it? I’m so very sorry, Ms. Franklin. Let me introduce myself. My name is Gerald Montgomery, your aunt’s attorney and executor of her will.”
I switched the light on, climbed out of bed to grab a pad of paper, then got back in bed.
“Okay, Mr. Montgomery, you’ve got my attention. Now tell me everything, including how in the world she died without even one person in my family knowing about it.”
“Well, Ms. Franklin, she was, as you are aware, quite eccentric,” he began with a chuckle.
Thirty minutes later I set the phone down, utterly numb and confused. I looked back down over the notes I’d scribbled on the pages.
• passed away with no one but me named in her will
• house and ranch and all worldly goods . . . to me?
• Mendocino. As in California!
I looked at the clock, my mind whirling. It was too late to call my parents. I’d have to call them in the morning. I could barely process all of this. Crazy Aunt Maude. I hadn’t seen her since I was twelve, spending the summer out west with her in her old house.
The old house on a cliff above the beach. Oh my God—the beach house.
I flew out of my bedroom, down the stairs, and toward the bookcase in the living room. I grabbed an old family photo album, filled with Polaroids from family vacations and holidays from when I was kid. Flipping through the pages quickly, I found the ones I was looking for.
I spent one summer in Mendocino, one magical summer with my family and Aunt Maude. It was so long ago I’d almost forgotten it. I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of sun on my skin, salt in the air, and sand between my toes. I opened my eyes and stared down at the picture of the Victorian home overlooking the raging Pacific. Named “Seaside Cottage,” it was anything but. Turrets. Widow’s walk. Porch for days. Wide plank floors rubbed smooth from years of bare feet running across it. Kitchen garden. Attic, filled to bursting with trunks and old dress mannequins. It was like little girl wonderland.
And I’d inherited it?
And the ranch! Christ, how could I have forgotten the ranch that was adjacent to the picture-perfect house? Acres and acres of fertile California land, dotted with sheep, chickens, and the occasional milk cow. And horses. How could I have forgotten the horses? And the quaint old barn where . . . wait a minute . . . horses need tending to. Usually by a . . . cowboy.
A mysterious phone call in the middle of the night, beckoning me from my sleep. A call that awakened my mind with endless possibilities. An adventure? A new beginning? A journey across the land where a new life awaits? One with a . . . gulp . . . a cowboy? Shit. I could gulp a cowboy. Especially if I was about to be starring in my very own romance novel. But could I actually move across the country? I didn’t know a soul in California.
Wait, strike that.
I picked up the phone to call the only person I knew on the West Coast. One who shared the same sense of adventure that I once did.
It was only eleven o’clock in California. Of course, who the hell knew where he might be, knowing his job? I scrolled through my phone, looking at his name, weighing the decision about waiting to call in the morning.
Fuck it.
I called my old friend from high school, Simon Parker.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
4.5 entertaining stars -- love Viv!
By Rachel M
Screwdrivered introduces us to a whole new cast of characters. Yes, Vivian was introduced in Rusty Nailed, but it was a brief, minimal introduction. Screwdrivered takes that little taste and makes it a full blown buffet. Bad boys? Good guys? Mixed emotions? This story has it all.
Viv Franklin inherits an old house from an eccentric aunt she hasn’t see or heard from in years (and didn’t even know was dead). An impulsive move across the country puts Viv smack dab in the middle of one of the romance novels she secretly loves.
Viv was such a study in contrasts. She is a great mix with a hard, strong exterior and a soft, romantic heart. Having five older brothers, she is used to standing up for herself, wrestling for herself, and working hard for what she wants. She put aside her love of art to follow in the family tradition of working with computers, though she made her own mark by developing her own software rather than joining the family business like her brothers. I loved her independent nature, and her adventurous streak that allowed her to travel across the country on a whim, thus sparking the whole story.
(quote)Sometimes falling in love just means turning around and seeing what’s right in front of you.
When she arrives at Seaside House, once she is able to look past the piles of random clutter and junk her aunt had amassed, she is dumbstruck by the hulking cowboy who visits daily to tend to the horses and chickens.
Hank is all man, walks around the barn shirtless from the time he steps out of his truck to the time he finishes caring for the animals. It is especially humorous to watch the otherwise confident Viv become tongue-tied each time she is in close proximity to him.
But there is also the quiet, unassuming librarian who gets under her skin with his ability to frustrate her and direct her restoration efforts. They are quick to argue about the house and it’s characteristics, but they also develop an interesting friendship that comes out of late night phone calls about the house.
Uprooting her life from Philadelphia to Mendocino meant Viv had to develop an entirely new support system and friendships. Jessica, a local waitress, quickly fills the role of nosey townsperson and new best friend. Her insights into other characters and her assistance at the house were both invaluable to Viv and humorous to readers.
When Viv goes on the prowl, her internal monologue shifts into a romance novel style narration. Each time it happened, I couldn’t help but grin as it showed a completely different side of the determined, spunky Viv.
During the planning of the renovations, Viv enlists the help of Caroline and Simon, who in turn bring Mimi and Ryan with them to visit. It was fun to see these four again, and the easy friendship that picks up between Caroline and Viv is especially fun as it plays out during the course of the story.
Screwdrivered kept me entertained from start to finish. The brief introduction to Viv we got in Rusty Nailed was a great glimpse into what we were in-store for with Vivian Franklin, but her story in it’s entirety reminded me of both the best parts of what I loved reading Wallbanger, and something else entirely unique. I spent much of my reading time with a grin on my face, or straight up laughing. And when I wasn’t reading? I was trying to figure out how to sneak some extra time with the story. This was a fun, grin-inducing read.
I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Hilariously Funny
By Lazy Book Lovers
Nicole turned the page with abated breath. Anticipation coursing through her veins and her heart racing with just the thought of what was to come. Would she choose the raunchy cowboy with glistening abs? Or will the debonair librarian come in and sweep her off her feet with intellectual foreplay? Wait, this isn't my romance novel. Sadly, I don’t have a cowboy or a hot librarian. That is all for Viv, or Vivian, as Clark likes to call her.
Screwdrivered is just the newest addition to the Cocktail series by the lovely Alice Clayton. In it we meet Viv Franklin (or again if you've read Rusty Nailed), a high school friend of our resident Wallbanger Simon. Viv is a spitfire with a not-so-secret romance novel fetish. Just when she is feeling the itch for a new adventure in her life, she suddenly learns that she has inherited a house and land across country from a very distant relative. I mean, come on, don’t we all wish this would happen?
After making the decision to pack up and head to Mendocino, California, things start to become her real life romance novel. Speaking of novels, some of the titles in this book are to die for! The Wolf of Lust Street? That is just genius! Even though Viv was all for the smut like some of us obviously are, she seemed a bit cynical at first. Once she learned that there was a cowboy in the equation for this new house, she had a one track mind and that track included her and Fabio on a bed of hay.
I loved how open Viv was. Even when she saw that the house wasn't exactly has she remembered; i.e basically a house that could be on an episodes of hoarders minus the cats, she went with it. What she didn't go with was Clark, the librarian. Oh, but he was delicious with his knowledge and tweed jackets. I loved the contrast between him and cowboy Hank. It showed that not everything is as it seems.
There is so much I could go into detail about this book, but I think that would just spoil it. I will say that as you expect with an Alice Clayton novel, there will be laughs and thigh clenching. The build up in this one was epic. The whole time I felt like a cheerleader on the sidelines with my pom-poms cheering Viv on. This may have been my favorite of the three, but I still will always love my Wallbanger. Though, I wouldn't mind a little time in the stacks with that librarian or in the barn with the cowboy either.
~ Reviewed by Nikki @ Lazy Book Lovers
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
So much NOT to like!
By ecole
I had really high hopes for this book and some things were good but there was a lot I didn't like. The premise was good - 1 star for that. I loved the setting - it was so descriptive I felt like I could smell the salt air so another star for that.
I really disliked Vivian! She came across as incredibly self-centered, superficial and dense. I kept thinking how ironic it was that a college graduate who had traveled the world was so dumb and uninformed. I think her stupidity came from her being so self-centered - she only had knowledge about the things she was interested in. Things like why someone would want to preserve an historic home and why you want to be kind to all animals were non-issues to her because she didn't feel they were important. I got incredibly tired of her pretty quickly!
I liked Clark in the beginning but after he continuously let Vivian "tease" him (actually make fun of him!) I got tired of him as well. He was pretty gutless - how was Vivian supposed to know he was interested in her, by osmosis??!
I'm surprised I finished this book at all - kudos to me!!! ; )
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Screwdrivered (The Cocktail Series), by Alice Clayton iBooks
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Screwdrivered (The Cocktail Series), by Alice Clayton Mobipocket
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