The Wager [Hardcover]

STORY BRIEF:
Two oil companies are merging. The two owners of the companies are Red and John. They each have one adult child, Ivy and Will who are in their 30s. Red and John want to retire and have Ivy and Will work together to run the combined company and if possible get married. Ivy and Will are not interested in meeting each other in advance. Red makes a wager with Ivy, betting her she cannot run a hamburger joint for 30 days, living on minimum wage in a trailer in a small town. He offers her a Cadillac and vacation time. She takes the bet. She must use a false name. At the same time, John makes a similar bet with his son Will. Will must go to the town Ivy is in, find a minimum wage job for a month and also use a false name. Will takes the bet. Ivy hires Will as a cook for the month. He pays part of his salary to rent a bedroom in the trailer she's living in. They work and live together for a month, not knowing the true identity of each other.

REVIEWER'S OPINION:
My feelings at the end of the book were lovely, sweet and pleasant story, but I was annoyed with two things described in spoilers below. The good guys steal and laugh about it, and the author used a weak excuse for conflict.

DATA:
Story length: 185 pages. Since there is no sexual content, this book might be appropriate for teenagers. Setting: current day Texas and Oklahoma. Copyright: 2004. Genre: contemporary romance.


CAUTION SPOILERS:

I don't like main character good guys stealing without remorse. In the interest of telling a good story, I'm ok with the good guy stealing from an enemy, or stealing food or medicine to survive, or even stealing a girl he's in love with, but not this. This is stealing property for convenience and entertainment. Joyce is getting married. She forgot to order rose petals, and the local florist is out of roses. So, her sister April picks all the roses from a neighbor's yard, planning to tell the neighbor that the grasshoppers did it. Joyce, April and Ivy laugh about it. After reading the book, I thought more about that than I thought about the story. It bothered me. I wouldn't have minded it as much if they had left a note with compensation for the roses.

The two fathers required that Will and Ivy use false names and not tell anyone who they were. Later, when they discover each others' true identity, they are angry with each other because each feels the other lied about who they were. This anger continues for days. The anger should have been directed at the fathers who required the lies, not each other. This was a weak excuse for conflict. I wish the author would have come up with something different.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  2.0 out of 5 stars