Tamara Leigh's Stealing Adda~Reviewed

Stealing Adda
By Tamara Leigh
Published by NavPress
ISBN 1-57683-925-7

New York Times Best-Selling Author and Historical Romance Writer Extraordinaire, ironically reads more like a country song than a bodice-bursting, breathes affair. For starters, she has no actual romance in her life. That might have something to do with the fact her husband—correction: EX-husband—ran off with Stick Woman, who everyone knew would never be more than a midlist author anyway. To add insult to injury (another verse to the country song), he not only took their dog but gave it to the new woman. If that weren't bad enough, Adda's come down with a horrible case of writer's block and finds herself the unwitting target of a romantic cover model's misdirected (and completely unreciprocated) amorous advances. Just when she catches the eye of a certain fabulously good-looking man—her arch-nemesis gives the pot one final stir.

'Hilarious' doesn't come close to defining the sarcastic wit of Tamara Leigh. She's created one of the most unique heroines I've read in a long time. I laughed out loud into the wee hours of the morning unable to put it down. From the battles of her conscience—which Adda nicknamed Prim and Improper—to her search for faith, nothing is safe from Leigh's tongue-in-cheek humor. Poor Adda is the walking example of Murphy's Law, especially when Improper eggs her on.

Using the publishing world as her backdrop, the stakes rise when Adda is accused of plagiarism by her arch-nemesis, Birgitta Roth—a.k.a. Stick Woman. But mirth reigns throughout the book, whether it's a love scene gone awry or snatching a handful of Stick Woman's hair, Tamara Leigh brings her readers along on a merry ride. She even handled the problem of cursing with humor. She merely bleeped them out. I got so tickled at the bleeps, I began to "hear" them (the bleeps, not the curses), as I'm sure Leigh intended.

Weaving a search for faith into this side-splitter was well done and never out of character. Adda remained faithfully Adda, even as she tried to be otherwise. One of my favorite reads of this year. I'm still giggling as I write this. Stealing Adda is a book I'll read again.

Reviewed by Ane Mulligan
www.anemulligan.com