The Model Man has won The Road to Romance Reviewers Award! The Reviewers of The Road to Romance give this award to several books a year that they consider outstanding.

Will the real Christie Harris blow her chance at love?

So she's taken some stuff nobody will miss. Pretended to be a producer to get into a party. And used her acting skills—currently not being used on movie screens across America—to impersonate a psychic so she and her best friend Louie can afford the occasional rosemary chicken with new potatoes. But really, who in L.A. plays it totally straight?

Except now, some gorgeous guy with well-fitting jeans, a Texas drawl, and a badge thinks she's the real deal, and he wants her to "read" a crime scene to help with his investigation. Holy...sugar. Before you can say "serious sexual tension," Christy's in over her head and under the covers in the wackiest, hottest, most heart-felt romance ever to take place under a Hollywood moon...

They plucked him like a prize fish from the Southwest swell off the jetty. Two men in linen suits and pastel tee shirts like they'd just walked out of an episode of Miami Vice. He was sixteen and tall, big boned, with tanned good looks that kept his mother from entirely despairing of what she called his "dearth of brains."

Even the other kids trolling for surf didn't think much of him. "Outta the way dude," they'd shout, and slam their boards down the face of some perfect ride, pushing him out of the line up.

Girls, who should've liked him because he was cute, didn't, because they said he was "stuck on himself." Well maybe he was, he liked looking at himself in a mirror, practicing different ways of combing his hair.

It was a habit that served him well for awhile, once the linen suit guys showed up. They gave him and his mom papers to sign, and themselves power of attorney, and they sent him off, without having to finish high school, which he was gonna flunk out of anyway, to jet set around Paris and Malaga and New York, showing off swim trunks and underwear and hats and a funky purple checked suit and Hawaiian shirts and good electric razors. They took pictures of him showing off, and he appeared inside some of the hottest magazines around the world, on bill boards and bus sides. He was a success.

Now everybody thought it was a good thing when he stood around and checked his hair, they said he was dedicated to his craft. Other guys never really took to him, but oh, man, the girls started liking him now, the booze and the pills and the parties and the people who'd take pictures of you doing all kinds of things, not just posing in pretty clothes with shiny products, smiling a knowingly vacant smile.

But he didn't stay sixteen forever, and he didn't even stay twenty-one, and he was twenty-two when he came back to the beach, broke, and latched onto the first scheme of many that shaped, and eventually took, his life, twenty years later.

I read about Richard J. "Ricky" Littlejohn in one of the alternative weekly papers that specializes in noirish yet politically correct exposes about crooks and politicians and the latest sex fad. I wouldn't have picked up the paper and read about him at all, except I was stuck waiting for a mark who was late, and kept calling me on her cell phone.

"I'm just a teeny bit late and with traffic...it would mean so much if you'd wait for me, Christina."

Now usually it wasn't a good thing when somebody you'd set up kept you waiting, it meant they were wise to the con you were running or getting cold feet. Still this one had a nice desperate quality to her voice, and I had this kind of desperate thing myself about paying my rent, so I stayed put.

I read this book twice...to do it justice. Christy is anything but a typical romance heroine...The story is complex, and involved. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to reading more from this author. - Nancy Riggins-Hume - The Road to Romance

“...wacky, witty... romantic, and satisfying...” - Nanette, Joyfully Reviewed

“Davis's sharp, snappy writing style is wonderfully entertaining,” - John Charles, Reader To Reader Reviews

“THE MODEL MAN is a fast paced, made for Hollywood, must read caper... This one is going straight to my keeper shelf.” - Rosie Bindra, Romance Junkies

Davis' romantic suspense THE MODEL MAN is truly a find. The protagonists are interesting; their love affair is convincing; Christy's best friend, Louie, is a delight; and the well-crafted mystery is as entertaining as one of Stephen J. Cannell's television shows. —Diana Tixier Herald - Book List

With two engaging—though definitely flawed—lead characters, a nicely crafted suspense and some kooky secondary characters, THE MODEL MAN is pretty hard to resist.

Although most everything about this story is offbeat, it strikes the right chord... skillfully layered... a well-written, fast-moving charmer. A charmer I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. --Romance Readers at Heart, Debbie Jett

...keeps you on the edge of your seat waiting for what will happen next. ---Fallen Angel Reviews, Tammy

It feels as if we are watching the story unfold as a movie in front of our eyes... a thrilling novel with an astonishing ending. — Romance Reviews Today, Carolyn Crisher

If you want a book that will have you turning the pages for action, humor, and passion, this book is for you! --- Coffee Time Romance, Sherry Cammer

This is a very quirky, funny novel with some excellent dialogue and a complex plot. The sexual tension between Joe and Christy is steamy. — The Romance Readers Connection, Jeri Neal

...will have you reading into the early hours of morning. Few other authors have been able to keep me guessing right up to the end as to who was the real bad guy. --Romance Designs, Rhae

...a winning style, tight pacing, tons of irony that will often have you laughing aloud as Christy and Joe balance romance and murder. --Bookloons, Martina Bexte

...a marvelously conceived and finely executed romantic mystery tale from a very talented new author. Genie Davis has crafted wonderful characters who come alive and entice the reader into their story immediately. The mystery is a finely spun web of intrigue, luring the protagonists into the net and putting their lives in jeopardy. This is an intelligent, tautly drawn, edge of your seat novel that is hard to put down. ---Affaire de Coeur Magazine, Betty Cox

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To purchase Genie's books in Australasia please visit Rendezvous Books

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