Flirting with Pete FROM THE PUBLISHER
Casey Ellis has arrived at a lonely place in her life. Her mother remains in a comatose state several years after a terrible accident -- and now her father has died.
Although Casey didn't really know him -- never met him, in fact -- she had held out an oblique hope that someday this man, Dr. Cornelius Unger, a celebrated psychologist, might acknowledge her. In an attempt to please him, she even went into his field and became a counselor, to no avail.
It comes as a shock, therefore, when she learns that he has left her his beautiful townhouse in Boston's exclusive Beacon Hill section. She is of half a mind to sell it and use the money to care for her mother, but then she visits the townhouse and finds it enchanting. In fact, any chance she might have had of resisting the house is lost when she falls in love with the hidden garden out back. Sweetening the deal is the maid, a woman close to her age, who cooks and cleans and wants only to please her; and the gardener, a man who is as enigmatic as he is handsome.
Yet always in Casey's mind is the question of why Cornelius Unger chose to acknowledge her in this way. Sensing that he had an ulterior motive, she searches the house and finds the first part of a manuscript that could be a novel, a journal, or a case study of one of her father's clients. The manuscript tells the harrowing story of a young woman named Jenny who was sexually abused by her father and emotionally abused by her mother. When her mother was murdered, her father was sent to prison. Now, after only six years in jail, he is about to be released, and Jenny knows she has to escape. Her way out appears in the form of a mysterious stranger, a dream of a man named Pete, who shows up on his motorcycle and offers to whisk her away.
Convinced the story is true -- even more, that her father has left this manuscript as a message for her -- Casey sets out to find the rest of the pages. With the discovery of each additional segment, she learns more about Jenny, about herself, and about Cornelius Unger, who she realizes has planned this journey for her, actually begun the first day she set foot in his house. The manuscript proves to be the key to understanding not only her father's past but also that of the man she has come to love.
Flirting with Pete reaches its climax with a startling twist, one that explores the role of imagination in our everyday lives. Through Jenny's story, Casey gains insight into her own life as she vacillates between what she wants to be true and what actually is. With unflinching grace, Barbara Delinsky delves into the human psyche as it colors contemporary family life. Flirting with Pete is sure to touch a personal chord with readers and win her even more dedicated fans.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Cassandra (Casey) Ellis, 34, a single, successful psychotherapist, is the newest of this prolific romance writer's heroines. The novel opens with a memorial service for Dr. Cornelius Unger, a brilliant and reclusive psychologist who is also Casey's father. She never knew him personally, since she was the product of her mother's single encounter with Unger, and is shocked to learn that Dr. Unger has left her a $3 million townhouse on Boston's Beacon Hill, complete with a maid, Meg, and a gardener, Jordan. Casey has always felt hostile toward her famous, mysterious father, even though her mother never expressed any anger. She's uneasy at first about living in a luxurious house haunted by her father's presence, but soon finds its meticulously attended gardens a source of relief from professional stress and the emotional turmoil of caring for her mother, left comatose after a recent accident. Moreover, she is attracted to handsome, virile Jordan. While she's rooting through Dr. Unger's personal papers, she comes across the story of Jenny Clyde, a young woman in her 20s who was abused by her father for years before being rescued by a police officer. Casey becomes intrigued: is this incestuous relationship fiction or one of Dr. Unger's case histories? Why did her father leave it for her to find? Delinsky (The Woman Next Door, etc.) weaves Jenny's story through the novel, and meshes her and Casey's fates in a melodramatic climax. Both stories have some lapses in credibility and underdeveloped supporting characters (Meg is particularly weak), but the plot is more sophisticated and fast-moving than some of Delinsky's earlier work. It will satisfy her fans and may even win her some new readers. Agent, Amy Berkower. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Therapist Casey Ellis knew she was a product of a one-night stand between her mother (now comatose) and her renowned psychologist father. But she never met him, and he never acknowledged her until after his death, when he left her his mortgage-free townhouse in Boston's upscale Beacon Hill. Casey has every intention of selling it and reaping a sizable nest egg, but circumstances cause her to linger. When she discovers writings about a young woman named Jenny Clyde among her father's belongings, she is determined to find out more about Jenny and to understand the father she never knew. This is another "I didn't want to put it down" novel from Delinsky, a popular author of contemporary romantic fiction (An Accidental Woman). Highly recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/03.]-Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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