7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Alexis Fleming Writes Charming, Sexy Books, August 10, 2007
A female professor of Egyptology, Emily, was sent a fragment of ancient parchment purportedly giving a recipe for paint that makes objects painted with it invisible. The Federal government takes an interest, and because there are signs someone else is taking an interest as well, assign her an agent/bodyguard (Nicholas). She is so adamantly against the idea of a man staying with her, the agent's boss tells her the agent is gay. (Not!)
Because Nicholas keeps showing what she is sure are signs of interest in her, she becomes intrigued with the possibility he's not really gay, but either confused or bisexual, and puts together a project to try to seduce him -- a project he's only too happy to cooperate with, at least after the assignment is over.
"Project: Man", Alexis Fleming's third book in print from Samhain publishing in less than a year, is at least as warm, charming, and sexy as her previous two. Ms. Fleming is a good writer, probably with a good editor, because there are few or no grammatical, structural, spelling, or homophonic errors in her work. While relatively light reading, "Project: Man", like Ms. Fleming's previous two Samhain works, is a very good book and I highly recommend it.
So why only 4 stars? The main reason I downgraded this book to 4 stars instead of giving it a 5 star rating is because what I see as a fairly major plot problem. I have a 15 year background in academia, and I cannot think of anyone in academia, especially someone with Emily's educational or political background, who would actually DO such a thing as trying to convince a gay man to go straight. Gay men are gay men, even if they can function with a woman. The professor, a liberal feminist, knows this, but justifies her actions based primarily on the fact that he is sexy and handsome and she WANTS him. She also believes that he IS interested in her sexually, and this helped her make up her mind to try to initiate him into the joys of loving a woman, but that is really secondary. Primarily she really, really, wants him, so she goes after him. No, not something someone of her background would do.
But, there would be no book if there was no Project: Man. And once the reader makes up her mind to ignore that anomoly, the book flows very well to a very warm and human ending.
So, if that plot point doesn't bother you, then I highly recommend this book. Alexis Fleming has developed into a fine writer of "Romantica(TM)"
Roxanne Pierce
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