Book Review: A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson

- Title: A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson
- Release date: January 31, 2012; Penguin U.K.
- Genre: romance, humor
- Setting: Edinburgh, London

The title might lead you to think the book's genre is erotica but it's really humorous romance. There is at most a page or two that might fit into the erotica category, which I don't normally read. The book follows an improbable romance between an online dating director and a man she corresponds with on the web.

Charlotte (Charley) Lambert ghost writes email for her clients who are looking for love online but are too awkward to write their own email. Charley is really a communications officer for a pharmaceutical company in Scotland, but after a horrific accident and surgery, finds herself in a wheelchair for three months. To keep her sanity, she creates her online dating company, First Date Aid, which has her writing email for her clients to set them up with the men and women of their choice.

Then, Charley begins correspondence with a man named William, writing him for her client Shelley, a corporate businesswoman who says she is too busy to do it on her own.  Charley and William really hit it off through their conversations via email and Charley begins to fall in love with this William, who thinks he is writing to Shelley.

Charley's grungy flatmate, Sam, an aspiring actor who hasn't had any luck in his career in years, starts to help Charley with advertising and getting the word out about First Date Aid, which begins to take off as a viable company.  Then there is John, CEO of the pharmaceutical company where Charley works, whose ongoing flirtation with Charley has never led to serious romance.

What happens between Charley and William and Shelley and Sam and John is all the fun in this humorous novel, a modern romance that keeps you guessing as events spin in one direction and then in another. I had to cheer for Charley at one point when she did exactly what I did when a close member of the family died. What? Read it and see...

And who does Charley land up with in the end, if with anyone?

I recommend this as an excellent read for the beginning of the year, 2013.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book.