Nobody Does It Better by Jan Freed

As I often do when I'm on a trip, I took a bunch of older, "falling apart" books out of my TBR pile and brought them on the plane. Some were duds (a few landed in the trash within 20 or 30 pages) but some were worth reading!

Nobody Does It Better by Jan Freed (HSR 741)
(1997, Contemporary Series) 2/28/08
Grade: 4

In the middle of a stressful merger, business executive Hope Manning is forced to take a “wilderness survival course”, led by Jared Austin. At first, Hope can’t stand the idea of life away from Diet Coke, but she grows to appreciate the outdoors - especially if a certain hunky wilderness guide is with her.

This is a book that succeeds almost entirely on tone. Hope has a wonderful, snarky tone that immediately makes her character stand out, even though she’s a familiar romance character. Although she’s a bit unlikeable at first, she quickly shows her softer side in her interactions with the other students (particularly the emotionally abused wife who struggles to keep up). Jared is also well developed - he could have been a cliche, and he’s not quite as memorable as Hope, but I appreciated how he admired Hope for her sass, rather than trying to turn her into something else. The suspense plot was better integrated than most, but the end of the book was a bit cliched, and I thought the ending was rather rushed - it seemed like Hope and Jared rushed from attraction to “true love” far too quickly. But that may just be a necessity of the series format. Overall, a fun and enjoyable read.

Whatever happened to Jan Freed? She wrote wrote several excellent series books, but then disappeared. Too bad!