Prepare to be absolutely charmed by Jennifer Crusie's riotous tale of two slightly twisted sisters and a town chock full of hunks, coots, and petty politics in Welcome to Temptation.

Sophie and Amy Dempsey are just two wedding filmers trying to hop to the next level of their careers when they agree to produce a documentary of aging film star Clea Whipple's return to her hometown of Temptation, Ohio. And when the local mayor, Phin Tucker, and the police chief, Wes Mazur, proffer themselves as willing subjects for quick flings, Sophie and Amy aren't the type to object. But things are never easy in rural Ohio, and what starts off as an esoteric art film project soon evolves into potential porn--and that's just the relationships, let alone the documentary. Clea's husband Zane turns belly-up, the race for mayor turns dirty, and Sophie and Phin turn on the heat full steam.

With hot sex, clever characters, and Crusie's trademark wit, Welcome to Temptation will keep your eyes glued to the page and your stomach aching with laughter. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien


From Publishers Weekly
Crusie's saucy feminist romp stars a heroine who captures her man's heart, and then goes after his job, meanwhile enjoying "headbanging sex," filming soft porn and acquiring both a house and a dog named Lassie. A car crash welcomes Sophia Dempsey to Temptation, Ohio, as she arrives from Cincinnati to help her hot-tempered, smart-mouthed sister, Amy, film a video with a washed-up local actress. Sophie's misgivings about small-town Temptation increase when she sees the town's rusted welcome sign: "We Believe in Family Values." Yet unconventional Sophie soon ditches her boyfriend (who is also her ex-therapist) and falls for Phineas Tucker, Temptation's macho mayor, scion of the town's premier political family and single father. News of the Dempsey sisters' film prompts the prudish town council to institute an antiporn ordinance, which Phin is obligated to uphold while he inspires Sophie's experiments with sexy camerawork. Crusie adroitly mixes the outrageous and the practical, modern feminism and old-fashioned romance, and adds a liberal dose of razor-sharp humor. Sophie's effort to enact the mayor's favorite sexual fantasy is thwarted by interruptions by various townspeople confessing to murder, while, in one hilarious highlight, Sophie's costume for the evening falls victim to the laws of gravity. Minor characters offer more humor and romance: the police chief and the ex-juvenile delinquent, Sophie's scheming brother and his ex-wife, the porn king and the town debutante, Phin's daughter and his mother. Like a stand-up comic, Crusie (Crazy for You) charms with her brisk, edgy style, and the repartee between Sophie and Phin keeps energy and sexual tension high. A romantic comedy that adds luster to the genre, this effervescent tale will please readers who can relate to Sophie's undaunted exploration of all her desires. Agent, Meg Ruley. Author tour. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Crusie blends a combination of likable characters, gossipy small-town life, and a convoluted plot spiced with some steamy sexual situations into a highly entertaining read. Sisters Amy and Sophie, along with ex-sister-in-law Clea, have come back to Clea's hometown of Temptation, OH, to make a video, hoping to jump-start Clea's flagging acting career. The town council erroneously assumes the three women are making a pornographic film. Mayor Phin Tucker has the politically touchy job of protecting the town's morals and family values stance. Along with his police chief and best friend Wes, the mayor is supposed to investigate and keep the town council informed. Add to this premise a shaky mayoral reelection campaign, a charming 11-year-old, and an unexpected dead body found on a dock. Crusie's previous novels (Crazy for You, Tell Me Lies) are notable for merging a seemingly endless supply of secondary characters with outlandish situations and very funny dialog. This offering is no exception. Readers who enjoy novels by Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Susan Andersen will love Crusie. A smart buy for any public library with contemporary romance readers.---Margaret Ann Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., MI Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
If small towns are filled with heroes like Crusie's (Crazy for You, p. 163, etc.), then romance readers may begin to crowd the highways. Sophie Dempsey, the ``daughter of a thousand felons,'' and her sister, Amy, come to the town of Temptation, Ohio, to film an ``audition tape'' for Clea Whipple, a local girl turned porn star whose anchorman husband has run off with her inheritance and refuses to give it back. Sophie is one of the only honest, if repressed, members of a family of charming cons and thieves. After her mother's death, she raised her sister and her brother, Davy, who now specializes in parting shady businessmen from their dubious gains. Their father, a guy with a long rap sheet, is permanently on the lam. In the upright town of Temptation, the major bones of contention appear to be the painting of the water tower, which looks like a large erect phallus, and the ordering of new streetlights. These rather boring proceedings are presided over by Phineas Tucker, whose silly name hides a really hunky ``town boy''a single father who owns the local bookstore. Phin, immediately taken with Sophie's lower lip, seduces her with promises of slightly kinky sex. Sophie hasn't had any good ``head-banging sex'' in quite a while, if ever, and is inspired by Phin's technique, using their love scenes as a template for Clea's video. Crusie seems to have perfected the fan-delighting art of erotic, comic, and yet homey sex, with the understanding that the head-banging sex is made possible by that head-banging other word: love. Into this jokey, soft-core mix, Crusie inserts modern-romance's de-rigueur murder and hometown violence, the working out of which threatens to derail her plot as well as the appeal of roadside America. Nevertheless, with her third seriously pleasing hardcoverbright, funny, sexy, and wiseits time to welcome Crusie into the pantheon of top-flight romance writers. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Bright, funny, sexy, and wise."--Kirkus Reviews

"Cruise charms with her brisk, edgy style...a romantic comedy that adds luster to the genre, this effervescent tale will please readers."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Cruise blends a combination of likeable characters, gossipy small-town life, and a plot spiced with some steamy sexual situations into a highly entertaining read."--Library Journal



Review
"Bright, funny, sexy, and wise."--Kirkus Reviews

"Cruise charms with her brisk, edgy style...a romantic comedy that adds luster to the genre, this effervescent tale will please readers."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Cruise blends a combination of likeable characters, gossipy small-town life, and a plot spiced with some steamy sexual situations into a highly entertaining read."--Library Journal



Book Description
Turn left at small town secrets...

Sophie Dempsey is content living a quiet life filming wedding videos until an assignment brings her to Temptation, Ohio. From the moment she drive into town, she gets a bad feeling; Sophie is from the wrong side of the tracks and everything in Temptation is a little too right. And when she has a run-in with the town's unnervingly sexy mayor, Phineas Tucker, making a little movie turns out to be more than a little dangerous.

Yield to oncoming desire...

All Sophie wants to do is film the video and head home. All Phin wants to do is play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. They both get more than they bargained for when Sophie's video causes an uproar and the proper citizens of Temptation set out to shut them down.

Welcome to temptation...

As event spiral out of control, Sophie and Phin find themselves caught in a web of gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, and really excellent sex. All hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble...and in love.



From the Publisher
"Crusie's characters have sharp edges tht lend themselves to both comedy and villiany." -The New York Times Book Review "Jennifer Crusie has a marvelous writer's voice - funny and dead-on realistic at the same time." -Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

FROM OUR EDITORS

Crusie's Irresistible Temptation

A town with a name like Temptation is bound to be a hotbed of trouble, and Jennifer Crusie knows the perfect way to expose it.

Welcome to Temptation is a deliciously titillating and outlandish mix of scandal, gossip, and small-town politics. Crusie throws in some really hot sex and a dead body or two just for fun, then pits a family of Temptation bluebloods against a family of outsiders whose heritage includes generations of con artists.

When Sophie Dempsey and her sister Amy head to the small town of Temptation, Ohio, to shoot a video with their friend and onetime porn star, the still gorgeous but aging Clea Whipple, Sophie has a premonition of disaster. It's a premonition that grows when Sophie and Amy literally collide with the town's most righteous and outspoken politician before they even get into town. But this car accident, which occurs just below a sign advertising Temptation's commitment to family values, is just the beginning of Sophie's troubles.

When a rumor circulates through Temptation that the women are shooting a porn video, it prompts visits from several townsfolk, including Temptation's very sexy mayor, Phineas Tucker. Sophie finds the mayor's charms irresistible and succumbs to a bit of indulgent sex she figures will be a one-night stand. But that one night leads to another...and another...and another...with some mornings and afternoons thrown in for good measure. And despite their best intentions, neither Sophie nor Phin seems able to give up their sessions of mind-blowing, "headbanging" sex.

With an election right around the corner and a Tucker family legacy that includes many generations of mayors, the pressure is on Phin to keep Temptation on an even keel and his own reputation unsullied. But his biggest opponent, Stephen Garvey, is determined to bring Phin down, by hook or crook. And Phin's mother, who will stop at nothing to see the family legacy carried on, inadvertently aids Garvey through her attempts to keep Sophie and Phin apart.

Meanwhile, a Hollywood porn king comes to town and woos Garvey's young daughter. Clea's sleazy ex-husband, a nosy, blackmailing onetime newscaster, shows up armed with some very interesting facts about several people in town. And Sophie's brother, whose talents as a scam artist are unparalleled, shows up to defend his sister's honor. As if things aren't crazy enough, when a dead body turns up on a riverside dock, the finger of suspicion points in several directions at once. And suddenly Sophie realizes her premonition is about to come true in a very deadly way.

What with the gossip, the politics, and the healthy sexual appetites, Temptation is one busy little town. Crusie populates it with some of the most intriguingly quirky characters ever to walk the pages of a book. The repartee between Sophie and Phin is quick-witted and bawdy, the sex deliciously kinky. Crusie keeps the action zipping, the sex sizzling, and the laughs plentiful. She has all the eccentricities of a small town down pat, right down to the stunningly brilliant punishment delivered to the town's killer.

Temptation, whether it be the town or the sin, is perverse, pernicious, and one heck of a lot of fun.

—Beth Amos

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Turn left at small town secrets...

Sophie Dempsey is content living a quiet life filming wedding videos until an assignment brings her to Temptation, Ohio. From the moment she drive into town, she gets a bad feeling; Sophie is from the wrong side of the tracks and everything in Temptation is a little too right. And when she has a run-in with the town's unnervingly sexy mayor, Phineas Tucker, making a little movie turns out to be more than a little dangerous.

Yield to oncoming desire...

All Sophie wants to do is film the video and head home. All Phin wants to do is play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. They both get more than they bargained for when Sophie's video causes an uproar and the proper citizens of Temptation set out to shut them down.

Welcome to temptation...

As event spiral out of control, Sophie and Phin find themselves caught in a web of gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, and really excellent sex. All hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble...and in love.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Crusie's saucy feminist romp stars a heroine who captures her man's heart, and then goes after his job, meanwhile enjoying "headbanging sex," filming soft porn and acquiring both a house and a dog named Lassie. A car crash welcomes Sophia Dempsey to Temptation, Ohio, as she arrives from Cincinnati to help her hot-tempered, smart-mouthed sister, Amy, film a video with a washed-up local actress. Sophie's misgivings about small-town Temptation increase when she sees the town's rusted welcome sign: "We Believe in Family Values." Yet unconventional Sophie soon ditches her boyfriend (who is also her ex-therapist) and falls for Phineas Tucker, Temptation's macho mayor, scion of the town's premier political family and single father. News of the Dempsey sisters' film prompts the prudish town council to institute an antiporn ordinance, which Phin is obligated to uphold while he inspires Sophie's experiments with sexy camerawork. Crusie adroitly mixes the outrageous and the practical, modern feminism and old-fashioned romance, and adds a liberal dose of razor-sharp humor. Sophie's effort to enact the mayor's favorite sexual fantasy is thwarted by interruptions by various townspeople confessing to murder, while, in one hilarious highlight, Sophie's costume for the evening falls victim to the laws of gravity. Minor characters offer more humor and romance: the police chief and the ex-juvenile delinquent, Sophie's scheming brother and his ex-wife, the porn king and the town debutante, Phin's daughter and his mother. Like a stand-up comic, Crusie (Crazy for You) charms with her brisk, edgy style, and the repartee between Sophie and Phin keeps energy and sexual tension high. A romantic comedy that adds luster to the genre, this effervescent tale will please readers who can relate to Sophie's undaunted exploration of all her desires. Agent, Meg Ruley. Author tour. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal