I'm In No Mood For Love (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this uninspired follow up to Sex, Lies and Online Dating, Gibson layers cliché upon cliché and tops her confection with a heavy frosting of exposition. The result is a tale more sickly than sweet, filled with characters as lively as the figurines atop a wedding cake. The heroine, romance writer Clare Wingate, is your typical good girl who's itching to go bad, and globe-trotting reporter Sebastian Vaughan, a man's man who hates to see a woman cry (almost as much as he hates shopping), is the one person who can draw out her naughty side. Readers may detect a whiff of romantic tension after a less-than-shocking revelation-involving Clare's fiancé Lonny, who's got a thing for pastels and a skill for flower arranging-leads a distraught Clare to a drunken encounter with Sebastian. But once Lonny is out of the picture, and commitment-phobic Sebastian agrees to become Clare's friend-with-benefits, the story spins its wheels waiting for Sebastian to realize his true feelings for Clare.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

How's this for a bad day? You come across your fiance and the Sears repairman in the act, stand up in a friend's wedding with a smile plastered on your face, get smashed at the hotel bar, and wake up virtually naked with, not a stranger, but with your old childhood nemesis exiting the shower. Romance writer Clare Wingate is shocked and humiliated and can't remember a thing, and Sebastian Vaughan doesn't bother to enlighten her. But he's back in Boise, and now they can't help running into each other. He finds it ironic that she writes romances, and she finds his -commitment-free lifestyle a joke. But there's just something about him that makes her delude herself into thinking she can handle his suggestion of a friends-with-benefits relationship. Gibson's all-around great story has everything: excellent characters, amusing wit, and a real, believable romance. Gibson exceeds expectations with this terrific tale. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Avon (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060773170
• ISBN-13: 978-0060773175
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #86,738 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Luke-warm Romance, October 5, 2006

By	Elaine C McTyer "avid reader" (Dawson, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This is a very luke-warm, inane, romance. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. The heroine is luke-warm, both in character and romance. She is one of the writers who is friends with Lucy, from SEX, LIES, AND ON-LINE DATING. It looks like each friend is going to have her own story. I didn't care for them as secondary characters and they make poor primary characters. It seems they only have a life in the books they write.

Clare Wingate writes romances. Her mother is ashamed of the books she writes. She catches her fiance in the closet, in more ways than one. First he is having an encounter with the washer repair man. Two he doesn't think he is gay. This is just one of several romances that have gone wrong for Clare. She immedately gets drunk and ends up in bed with the bane of her childhood. She thinks they have been intimate and he lets her think it. Only later does he tell her they just slept.

Sebastion is the son of her mother's gardner and handyman. He loves to give her a hard time. Later, only after she has gone through the embarassment of telling him she is aids free does he tell her they didn't do it. He was a lukewarm committment phobe.

Later, they decide to have an affair with no strings, sound familiar? Then of course after several months, she decides she loves him, so he splits. But he cannot stay away and so we have a happy ending. The romance was tepid, the plot was slow, the whole thing was just so forgettable. The last three novels by Ms Gibson have not been up to her standard. I really don't want to read any more tales of these four pathetic women. Alas, I noticed her next novel will be about Maddie Jones. You'll have to take your chances with this one.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Less than stellar, October 1, 2006

By	RomanceReaderOf10Years+ (California) - See all my reviews

The title of this review pretty much says it all. While the book is still a decent romance novel, I was very disappointed throughout reading it (hoping it would get better) and even more so once it came to its end. I have come to expect better from Rachel Gibson (one of my 5 favorite authors up to now). The greatest disappointment lay in that there wasn't at least one line or scene which gave my heart a little squeeze or skip. The book was just so average and unexciting. (For a brief summary, see reviewer Harriet Klausner's description.)
Although I have to admit that part of the let-down might have come from months and months of waiting for this book (and having read the great 'preview'), I also think that the book was uninspired. And at least two sentences I have seen (almost) verbatim in previous Rachel Gibson books. Sure, an author should be allowed to repeat some lines (and I have noticed those 'repeats' before), but in this book, it started to be annoying. If there are going to be lines out of "See Jane Score", couldn't there also be the endearing thoughts Luc has about Jane, or the hot dialogue? Or the love and longing from "Truly Madly Yours"? It gets old to have a commitment-phobic guy in every book, to have the woman always realize she's in love first, to have an overly macho guy (is a man only a hot alpha male if he doesn't like - or pretends not to like - small dogs, can't tell colors, hates shopping, is lace-phobic, etc...?).
And while I appreciate the fact that 'romance novel' does not have to mean constant interaction between the male and female protagonists, but can also include great friendships and personal growth, I found the focus on the separate growth of these characters too much.
Also, I think the reader never learns what Clare likes about Sebastian apart from the fact that he is hot, that she had a crush on him as a kid, that he can tease her like no one else and that he gave her a thoughtful gift?
It would have been nice to have read more about the small quirks they noticed in each other and came to love or other thoughts they have about each other. And maybe, if one of Gibson's male characters came to realize he loves the woman before she does, the endings would start to be more emotional and not seem like a sensible wrap-up. (The formula of "woman realizes she loves him, tells man, he freaks out, little while later also realizes he loves her, confesses his love, happy ending" has been used a bit too much by Gibson, I think).
If you're a Gibson fan, you'll probably want to read this anyway (and I'm glad I did), but don't expect to learn much about Lucy and Quinn (no direct scenes with both of them in it) or to have much magic (in the way of "Truly Madly Yours", "See Jane Score", or "Sex, Lies and Online Dating"). It's still a good effort, but there were no emotional dialogues or scenes that made me heart feel a bit funny and glad and reminded me of why I read romance novels in the first place.
PS: (The sex scenes were okay, although one of them did feel very much like a Luc&Jane one.)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Simply Irresistible" it ain't, December 19, 2006

By	Suzanne (Leesburg, VA) - See all my reviews

I loved Rachel Gibson's first six books, "Simply Irresistible" being one of my all-time favorites. I have continued to read her novels, but with less anticipation each time. Her latest lacks in both an interesting plot and in character development, i.e. likable characters you can connect with. I also recognized some wording that is identical to her other books. There just doesn't seem to be any love lost between her main characters, it's all about sex. Sex without feelings (even the typical unrealized or unadmitted kind) is not romantic. I donate all my books to the library. Maybe I'll go there are check out her old ones.