For the Love of Pete (Mass Market Paperback)

by Julia Harper (Author)
Key Phrases: pansy boy, kesar kheer, purple minivan, Julia Harper, Neil Junior, Pratima Gupta (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this hilarious follow-up to 2008's Hot, Harper teams up FBI Special Agent Dante Torelli with Zoey Addler, a sassy poet who calls him Lips of Sin and jumps in his car when she sees oddly endearing mob hit man Neil Janiowski kidnap her niece, Pete. Dante is assigned to guard Pete's father, a federal witness, and he gladly gives chase. In an inspired twist, when Neil leaves Pete and his own infant son alone for a moment, Indian sisters-in-law Savita-di and Pratima Gupta hijack his car, the high-grade saffron he stole from them and—inadvertently—the children. Dante tries to stay serious and track Pete as well as an FBI mole who's attempting to frame him for the kidnapping, but sassy, scattery Zoey, hapless Neil and bickering Savita-di and Pratima keep the laughs coming. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Zoey Addler moved back to Chicago to stay near her sister and take care of her baby niece, Petronella—Pete, for short. Unfortunately Pete’s father is the key witness in a Mob trial, and Tony the Rose decides to exert some pressure by having Pete kidnapped. Luckily, Zoey’s upstairs neighbor Dante (or Lips of Sin, as she calls him) is an undercover FBI agent. Zoey and Dante chase the kidnapper across the city until the kidnapper’s baby and Pete are accidentally snatched by two bumbling Indian aunts who are trying to track down their illegally imported saffron. Zoey, Dante, and the Indian ladies take a journey from the top of the state to the bottom, and amid all the gunfights and federal business, Zoey and Dante discover they might be drawn together by more than just the need to get Pete home safe and sound. Harper offers one fast-paced, funny, and sexy little romance. --Hilary Hatton

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Forever (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446619183
• ISBN-13: 978-0446619189
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #347,788 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out loud FUN! Highly recommended, January 5, 2009

By	Bookaholics Reviewer (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews

For the Love of Pete by Julia Harper

Contemporary Romance Mass Market Paperback - January 5, 2009

5 Stars

In a typical cold Chicago morning, people are sharking for parking spots, snow is covering window shields and individuals are running late for work. Once in a while, the typical turns into the unusual as detailed in Julia Harper's For the Love of Pete.

The story begins when Zoey Addler's freshly snow-cleared parking spot is snatched by Special FBI Agent Dante Torelli. Dante is running late for work and while attempting to negotiate taking the parking spot; gun shots are heard from the apartment building across the street. In a matter of seconds and like a slow motion action scene, Zoey and Dante observe a man running out of the safe house where Zoey's sister, boyfriend and niece are being protected from the mob. The cold Chicago mornings gets even colder when Zoey and Dante notice that the man running from the apartment is carrying a bundle in his hands- Pete.

Without thinking twice, Zoey jumps into Dante's car and a chase to recover Pete ensues. The chase sets into motion a variety of twists and turns. Other characters join the chase which keeps the story moving quickly and the pages turning.

While all this is happening, an attraction develops between Zoey and Dante. This is written in a very sweet way. The story doesn't feel forced and neither does the interaction between characters. The development of the story is fast paced including the budding relationship between the two main characters.

This story is full of funny, quirky, twisted characters engaged in funny, quirky, twisted situations. One of the many reasons I enjoyed this story is because of the array of likeable characters. Even the bad guy is likable and that made me wonder how Harper would tie all ends. I was not disappointed!

Harper has a nice charming writing style. Her characters are well developed and relatable. I laughed out loud during some pretty funny moments. This book is highly recommended!

Reviewed by Cez from Bookaholics Romance Book Club

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Well-Written, But a Bit Cluttered At Times, January 19, 2009

By	Lauren Sophie - See all my reviews

This is Julia Harper's (who also writes great historicals under the name "Elizabeth Hoyt") second book. The first, "Hot," was very promising, and introduced Dante Torellli, the well-dressed, by-the-book FBI agent that stars in "For the Love of Pete." Zoey, his love interest, is more of a free-spirit, but she's also very cautious when it comes to men. She and Dante are thrown into an extraordinary and dangerous situation together, and they must work together to save Zoey's neice, Pete, from some bungling kidnappers, corrupt FBI agents, and professional hit men.

There's a lot going on in this book, and to Harper's credit, the suspense story is well-developed and complex--you do have to pay attention to follow what's going on. And there are some nice surprises, too, along the way. Also, just as in her historicals, Harper proves herself to be a very good writer in a technical sense--her prose always flows and her dialogue is witty and believable.

The romance, in my opinion, is a little lacking overall, and for that, I blame the over-abundance of secondary points of view. The first half of the book is just too crowded, and so it took longer than it should have for me to really warm to the leads and start to root for them to get together. When the romance does come in the last quarter of the book it's passionate and sexy, but I would have liked more one-on-one chapters with these two in the beginning instead of so much time spent jumping back and forth between the mob bad guy, the FBI bad guy, and the two sisters who got caught up in the mess.

Grade: B

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Generic, Commercialized, Uninventive, April 8, 2009

By	E. Janiak "Artemis Of The Light" (Colorado) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My mother recommended I read For The Love Of Pete. I love to read, and I consider myself very open minded and enthusiastic when it comes to books. I like novels that are intended to be fun and a little silly. I respect my Mother's advice and her choice in movies and books is generally excellent. So, I gave this one a try, expecting humor, laughs, adventure, and generally an enjoyable book.
I am very disappointed.
I made it a few chapters in (trying to give the author a chance to draw me in to the story) and after the fiftieth eye-roll and heavy sigh (with a mental note of "that was totally predictable"), I decided to put it down permanently.
The characters are obvious, generic, stereotypical, and overly dramatized. They act and react unrealistically, and say unintelligent things. The author finds a new way to advertise something on every page if she can help it, i.e. Hummer, Prius and all their options, accessories and such. She has created the typical College age american girl with the plain jane theme, the standard handsome/mysterious/undercover-agent/jerk, the expected Indian women (of course, wearing Saris in the dead of winter in CHICAGO) and over-speaking to each other, repeating things over and over again in a way that no real person would. Now, I realize that fiction is designed to be fiction, that is fantasy. I am willing to cut the author some slack in that regard. But, when you base a Novel on current times, in a real setting, and with realistic scenarios, you really should try to stick to reality to some degree when writing about people. I don't think the author knows what real Indian women are like, nor does she know what real federal agents are like, or any of the other characters, for that matter.
The bad guy is a bad guy like all other bad guys. There is very little real world intelligence in this book. It was clearly written by someone who wants you to see a movie in your head while reading her book, regardless of how wholly unbelievable the story is. I'm sorry, but good fiction is based closely on reality, and the characters are paramount to the relation of the material. I couldn't relate to these people at all.
One other complaint, though it is really unimportant. I don't like it when a writer describes something over and over again. This one tells us the Hummer in the story is yellow about thirty times in the first chapter alone. Such a waste. It's too wordy.
I have absolutely no idea what my Mother saw in this book. Don't waste your money.