Customer Reviews

Wife for Hire

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Hank Malone was the town bad boy. He's returned to take up his inheritance - an apple orchard in Vermont. He has plans to turn it into a serious organic business, but in the town's eyes, he's still the same troublemaking stud he used to be, and the bank won't take him seriously for a loan. To change his image, he decides to hire a wife for six months, to give the illusion of stability and hopefull get the business loan. He hires Maggie Toone in New Jersey and brings her to his farm. She's eager to escape her small town life and job as a teacher, and relishes the chance to fulfill her dream of writing a book based upon her aunt's diaries. One small problem - her aunt was the local madam.

This is a very funny and witty book. Hank and Maggie's relationship is romantic and sexy. The dialogue is classic Evanovich - she easily writes in the rhythm of natural speech so the reader feels as though he/she could step right into the conversation. Hank falls in love with Maggie right off the bat and plots to make their marriage a real one; she is not so sure that she wants to be stuck in another small town. Elsie Hawkins, a reoccuring character in Ms. Evanovich's romances, is present here as a temporary housekeeper. She is the prototype of the Grandma Mazur character of the Stephanie Plum series - a feisty, blunt-speaking senior who drives a '57 Cadillac, packs a gun, and is in serious pursuit of the male species (in her age group, they tend to drop dead unexpectedly so she tries to act quickly).

Hopefully, someday these early Evanovich books will be reissued, but until then, this definitely one used-book worth finding.

I didn't know Janet Evanovich wrote romance stories earlier in her career, but I stumbled across this title and couldn't resist seeing how she did before she got famous with her Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series. The good news is: Janet is just as funny and whimsical here as are her better known recent works. The bad news is, the plot synopsis can be stated in about 20 words: man hires woman to pose as wife, they immediately fall insanely in love, and will they stay together after the gig?? Bet you can guess! Between the heated blood coursing through their veins at every touch, to -- well you get the drift. I guess that's why they call these bodice rippers! For a nice easy read, no mental stress, little doubt about the story line, and some heart warming (I guess) relationship study (with no explicit sex), coupled with that great Evanovich sense of humor, give it a try. Supposedly she did a few others for Loveswept, but I'll take my chances on missing those.

Maggie Toone is taking a sabbatical from teaching to write a book based on her Aunt Kitty's diaries. Aunt Kitty was a madam, so this book would be great in Maggie's opinion. Since she still needed some type of income to pay bills, she was looking for something she could do that would allow her to concentrate most of her time on the book. Hank Malone needed a wife. He didn't want to get married or do anything drastic like that, so he contacted an employment agency about hiring a wife. As it turns out, Maggie was the only one willing to move up to Vermont and pose as Hank's wife. He was trying to secure a loan to help his business Malone Apple Orchards, and needed to prove his stability. Hank had grown up in the area, and was quite the hell raiser, so he needed to prove to the community that he had indeed settled down. To make matters worse, his own father was the bank president, so he needed to prove himself to his father also.

As Maggie settled into her new temporary home, she found herself incredibly attracted to Hank. The feeling was mutual, and left Hank wondering if he had make the right decision bringing her to his home. He introduced her to everyone as his new wife, and had the entire town fooled including his family. As the weeks went by, both started feeling guilty about their deception, and even guiltier because they wanted their marital status to become reality.

This was a good light read. An earlier work of JE that doesn't compare to her work today, but it was enjoyable.

This is a re-release of a book originally published in 1990.

Maggie is a New Jersey girl and a little unconventional; she drives her mom and aunt crazy with her ways. She quits her teaching job in the hopes of writing a book about the family Madame.

Hank was a bad boy growing up and now he is fighting to shake off that reputation. He has returned to his hometown in Vermont and just wants a loan to help with his organic apples. But his father, the bank president, won't give him the loan because he feels he isn't grounded or responsible enough. So Hank hires Maggie to be his fake wife on his Vermont orchard for 6 months, just long enough for her to finish her book and for him to prove his stability.

OK, so this isn't the most emotionally deep or content heavy book on the planet... but it's cute. I hate that word but that is really the one word that popped up in my head over and over while reading... cute.

Longtime Janet Evanovich fans will recognize some similarities between the characters in this book to some of those in the Plum series. Elsie Hawkins is a character in this book as she is in a few of the other early romances written by Ms. Evanovich.

The mystery portion of this book was weak and beyond silly; I think I had it solved as soon as it began, but it does add a few chuckles here and there. This book won't win any literary awards, but I found it enjoyable just the same. Hank and Maggie have some chemical attraction and there are some sexy and sweet moments between them. It helped me pass a gloomy Saturday afternoon curled up on the couch; it was short and sweet and just what I needed.

I fell for it; went and bought this book. Read it in no time flat, though very soon into the book I already knew it was a piece of junk. Stupid, unbelievable characters. We're supposed to believe that Hank (the main guy character) in madly in love with the girl character in a single day.

I love the Plum series, even though I am getting sick of it, too, since it never advances, but these little previous books of Evanovich's show the practice work before she came up with Stephanie Plum. Every character and setting and even the dialogue is the same in all the books. The only exception is that by the Plum series, Evanovich finally got it right.

Don't waste your money or time.

Like most of the other reviewers here, I bought Wife for Hire because I love Evanovich's Plum Series. I have tried other of her earlier romance stories and been disappointed but, ever the optimist, thought I'd give it another go. This is the last attempt. The situation was highly artificial--a guy pretending to be married so his father will loan him money, though it turns out the orchard would have survived without it--and the guy falls for the girl in less than one day. There was no build up for it, as the girl responds pretty immediately to him, too. There was no attempt to distinguish between sexual attraction and love or to build from one to the other. The story was really rushed. The only high point was the madcap comedy involving the townspeople.

This is one of Janet Evanovich's early madcap novels, pre-Stephanie Plumb, now reissued after being so long out of print. Of course, being one of her early works, it is not a mature a style and richly nuanced at her super popular (yes I AM a fan!) Stephanie Plumb novels. If you can read it with that in mind and want to get a fun romping glimpse into her early writing, you will love this book. However, if you're expecting it to be Stephanie Plumb Re Deux, you would be disappointed. Just wait for the next Stephanie Plumb or re-read one which you already have.

That said, our heroine is (yes!) a New Jersey Girl, Maggie Toone, who was a tomboy with a kooky independent streak in here having grown up in a brick-making town of Riverside. She is an English teacher who has recently inherited her Aunt Kitty's Madam of a Bordello's Diary. The action opens on her 27th birthday picnic and cake celebration where she has just left being a school teacher and announces her intentions to her mother and Aunt that she will take a year off and go write a book based on the diary.

To do that, she has answered and Advertisement (one of those fun tidbits which dates the writing of it that the ad wasn't placed online like at Craig's List, or could you imagine, Ebay? lol) for a Wife For Hire. Hence the name of the novel.

Our hero is Hank (dreamy masculine name, of course) Mallone is a former hockey player (well that grabbed my attention because being from NJ myself, I am, ergo a hockey fan!) now lately an organic farmer of apples.


I won't ruin the plot for you, but of course, there are mutual madcap escapades. A pre-Grandma Mazure character in the housekeeper Elsie. And you can see some similarities of personality and hair challenges of Stephanie Plumb in Maggie.

All in all, a delightful weekend read. I literally curled up on a weekend morning with cup after cup of hot tea in the winter to read this. To me that is an idyllic weekend - reading and hot tea.

Highly recommend for a cold weekend and some hot tea reading!

Wife for Hire will mainly appeal to those who want to see what kind of a writer Janet Evanovich was before she began writing about Stephanie Plum. The deftness of the Stephanie Plum numbered novels becomes more apparent when you see Ms. Evanovich struggling to find a way to conclude Wife for Hire.

Hank Mallone, a young man with a reputation for not being serious, cannot convince his family, friends, and acquaintances that he's determined to make a success of being an organic apple farmer in Vermont. His solution? Pretend to be married. How? Hire someone to act as his wife.

Maggie Toone, a Jersey product, wants to escape from her life as a teacher to write a novel about her Aunt Kitty's career as a madam. She mainly needs peace, quiet, and some low-cost living. On a whim, she takes up Mallone on his offer.

From there, the story becomes an expected romance punctuated by some funny misunderstandings. I thought the most interesting part of the book came in reading about a Grandma Mazur prototype, Elsie Hawkins, who is Mallone's housekeeper/cook.

Misunderstandings abound, and some fun arises in the process. If you decide to read the book, focus on the fun.

The book gallops along at a nice pace until near the end where it takes an inauspicious turn away from being interesting. My impression is that Ms. Evanovich ran out of ideas for making the story interesting and simply limped to the finish.

If you like lots of schmaltz and predictability mixed in with your humor, you'll probably think this is a good romance novel. I was not amused enough to feel that way.

i loved the book she is a great writer and delivery was very prompt

Maggie Toone is taking a sabbatical from teaching to write a book based on her Aunt Kitty's diaries. Aunt Kitty was a madam, so this book would be great in Maggie's opinion. Since she still needed some type of income to pay bills, she was looking for something she could do that would allow her to concentrate most of her time on the book. Hank Malone needed a wife. He didn't want to get married or do anything drastic like that, so he contacted an employment agency about hiring a wife. As it turns out, Maggie was the only one willing to move up to Vermont and pose as Hank's wife. He was trying to secure a loan to help his business Malone Apple Orchards, and needed to prove his stability. Hank had grown up in the area, and was quite the hell raiser, so he needed to prove to the community that he had indeed settled down. To make matters worse, his own father was the bank president, so he needed to prove himself to his father also.

As Maggie settled into her new temporary home, she found herself incredibly attracted to Hank. The feeling was mutual, and left Hank wondering if he had make the right decision bringing her to his home. He introduced her to everyone as his new wife, and had the entire town fooled including his family. As the weeks went by, both started feeling guilty about their deception, and even guiltier because they wanted their marital status to become reality.

This was a good light read. An earlier work of JE that doesn't compare to her work today, but it was enjoyable.