"Hilarious Characters Make for a Lighthearted Fun Read"
Reviewed by Sharon Salituro
Posted February 24, 2013
Romance Contemporary
IN A PICKLE is a delightful book. I can't remember the
last time
while reading that I was laughing out loud. Meet Coco, she is in Vegas for to become a star. She falls
off the stage and breaks her back. Also meet Ace who was
in the wrong place at the wrong time. They meet up in
Purgatory. They are angels in progress. There job is to
get two people together without letting the other one know. Mary Louise Carson, Pickles to her family and friends and
Cam Hollinwell. Two people who have nothing in common.
Pickles is a teacher for children with disabilities, and
would like nothing more than to have a child. Cam is a
writer for a trashy magazine. Coco and Ace meet up with Pickles and lay out their plan to
her. They fail to mention anything about Cam. However
they do tell Cam all about Pickles. Pickles family is as
crazy as they come. Cam seems to fit right in with them. The events along the way are hilarious. No two people who get
into so such trouble would ever be able to get together. Not
only do we get to meet the angels, we also get to meet Sean,
a devil in training. Sean is there to protect Pickles from
harm. Sean seems to pop up all over. Pickles has no idea
who he really is and why he is around when all the incidents
happen to her. Will these two ever find the happiness that they both want? If you have never been to Vegas, this story takes you all
over the city. You meet several characters that I am sure
are really in Vegas. Ann Defee's sense of humor is contagious. How she comes up
with some of the things that happen to Pickles and Cam along
the way is beyond me. I found myself laughing several times
out loud. My dog looked at me like I am crazy. If you
like to laugh while reading you will enjoy IN A PICKLE.
SUMMARY
It takes a heavenly wink and a couple of wannabe angels
desperate to win their wings for Mary Louise "Pickles"
Carson and Cam Hollinwell to find true love. A Las Vegas
teacher with a proclivity for all things vintage, Pickles'
dream is to have a baby. Considering she thinks men are
pond scum, and her sex life is a big fat zero, that
aspiration seems highly unlikely. Cam is a washed up
journalist whose only goal in life is to return to
mainstream reporting. This conundrum will obviously require
a miracle. When neophyte angels, Coco Dombroski and Ace Rodriguez,
discover they have to earn their wings they come up with a
idea that's translated by the Powers That Be into a
scientific oddity called parthenogenesis– conception without
the benefit of a male found in plants and lower level species. Pickles is playing video poker when the angels bowl her over
with the news she's pregnant. Impossible! No sloppy French
kiss, no sex, no baby–especially not a progeny with Elvis's
talent. Cam's journalistic career tanked as the result of a false
date rape charge, and now he's reporting on Elvis sightings
for a national tabloid. He agrees to publicize the angel's
miracle only if they'll help him resurrect his career. But
life becomes more complicated when Pickles witnesses a "hit"
and Cam's job is expanded into being her bodyguard. Our hero and heroine find themselves in a world of romance,
murder, mayhem and all things Elvis. Falling in love is a
life changing event, but throw in an inept villain and a
cast of quirky characters– headlined by female impersonator
Merry Chino Cherry and a hunky devil–then set the story in a
Vegas tourists rarely see, and you have all the elements of
a rollicking good time.
Excerpt "Are you sure that's Pickles Carson?" Coco asked.
The Albertson's supermarket teemed with Saturday shoppers
and they'd lost sight of their prey several times. How
many tall blondes lived in Las Vegas?
"I'm absolutely positive."
They'd followed Pickles down aisle after
aisle. "She's not exactly a health nut, is she?" Ace made
that observation. "She went through the chips and cookie
section like a plague of locust through a wheat field."
"And she's not even chubby. With all
those curves she looks like a fifties bombshell." Coco
struck a pose. "In fact, that's the look I was going
for."
As a perk of this assignment, Coco could
choose the perfect body and she'd made the best of it with
big boobies, tiny waist, and shapely legs. In other words,
Pamela Anderson better watch out.
"I wish she'd find someplace to sit.
We've been trailing her for the last thirty minutes and she
hasn't slowed down long enough for us to snag her," Ace
groused. "I'm beginning to feel like a stalker."
"Me, too." Coco pointed at their
quarry. "Now she's heading over to the video poker
machines." Only in Vegas could you buy dog food and bet
on a full house, all in the same store.
***
Everyone in the family knew Pickles had a
full–blown grocery store phobia and the origin of
that fear wasn't a secret. Like most everything else that
had gone wrong in her life, it went straight back to her
ex–hubby, Billy Bob.
Five plus years ago she'd discovered her no–good,
lower than a rattlesnake's belly, husband diddling the
church secretary in the back seat of his mama's Lincoln
Town Car.
Pickles' first instinct had been to whip out her .357
Magnum and shoot him dead, but she didn't relished the idea
of doing twenty to life, so she decided to drown her
sorrows in chocolate – lots and lots of chocolate.
But in the euphoria of chowing down on a super–sized
Snickers bar she forgot to wheel her cart through the
grocery store checkout line, and sooner than you could say
Jack Spratt, she'd been busted for shoplifting.
Thank the good Lord her one and only brush with the law
occurred in Cottonwood where Uncle Otis served as sheriff.
Otherwise she'd have ended up in an orange jumpsuit, and
jailhouse duds weren't flattering to anyone.
But on this beautiful Saturday morning Pickles didn't
intend to dwell on anything negative. She spied the video
poker machines and decided to play a couple of hands before
tackling the produce aisle. No sooner had she plopped her
butt on the stool than a man and a woman sat down,
bracketing her. She didn't think anything of their
appearance until they started prattling on about scientific
miracles, babies, and Elvis. Obviously they were lunatics,
so why didn't she get up and walk off? Surely it couldn't
be because the guy happened to be a dead ringer for Mario
Lopez.
On the surface this might seem to be a normal Saturday
morning. Some harried shoppers employed the toss and run
method, while others studiously perused the labels. Add in
cranky kids and folks who didn't know how to use their
inside voices, and yep, this was an average weekend day.
The notable exception being the lunatics who seemed intent
on accosting her.
Pickles shot the man her best school teacher
stare. "Why don't you look for someone else to be in your
TV scam?" She turned her attention back to the jack,
queen, and king of hearts featured on the screen.
"If you'll get lost I can continue to
build my royal flush." Yeah right. Good luck –
like sex – had been missing from her life for a very
long time.
Undaunted by her overt hostility, the man
flashed her a million–megawatt smile. "I want to
apologize for the way we've handled this so far." He
winked at his companion. "Let me start at the beginning.
My name is Ace and my friend is Coco."
The female giggled and gave Pickles a
finger wave.
Pickles wanted to kick his ass off the chair and stroll
away, but her body and brain were having some sort of
strange disconnect. So she remained seated, transfixed by
his hypnotic eyes.
"Let me relieve your mind. We're not
kooks," he said, adding a movie star grin. "In fact, we
have something very important to tell you."
"Stop right there," she said with emphasis. "I'm not
interested in any give–away, contest, or pyramid
scheme." Pickles waved her hand in the direction of the
bleached blonde. "So why you and Coco go bother someone
else. I'm out of here." But before Pickles could grab her
purse, Coco touched her arm and an electric zing ran all
the way up her spine.
What was that all about?
"Don't be afraid," the bimbo said with a
giggle. "We're harmless. Aren't we, Ace?" She didn't
give him time to respond. "We're trying to make you
happy. And you're going to love our news."
Pickles closed her eyes and counted to
ten. With any luck when she opened them, they'd be
history.
She cracked an eye. Nope! They were
still there. Oh well, like her mama used to say, if she
didn't have bad luck, she wouldn't have any luck at
all. "Okay, I give. What do you want? If you're looking
for a donation, you're out of luck. I'm a poor school
teacher."
Coco's eyes twinkled. "Oh Pickles, we
don't want your money."
It took a couple of seconds for Pickles'
brain to process the fact the woman knew her name, and when
it did, the hair shot up on the back of her neck. "How do
you know who I am?" she yelped. What she wouldn't give for
a rent–a–cop right now.
Ace shot her another dimpled grin. "We
know everything about your past, present, and future." He
paused for a moment. "Do you believe in angels?"
They'd mentioned angels before. "You mean
the ones with wings, halos, and flowing white bathrobes?"
Pickles slapped a hand over her mouth. Stop egging them on!
"Well, not exactly. I'm talking about
guardian angels who look like regular people."
"Regular people?"
"Yeah, like Coco and me."
"Coco and you?" Pickles started to get the drift of
this conversation, and she didn't like it one little bit.
Coco patted her arm and generated that now familiar
surge of electrical energy. "You can't go yet. We really
do have something important to tell you."
Pickles pushed her stool back. "Don't touch me!"
"What I'm going to tell you will be very hard to
understand, and even more difficult to believe," Ace
said. "But you've been chosen for a special project."
He had a mesmerizing voice that could charm the birds
right out of the trees, but it didn't fool Pickles. She
had Billy Bob's legacy to fall back on, and all charismatic
men could be assigned to the depths of Hades.
"The head guys," Ace made apostrophes in
the air, "sent us down to give you the good news and to
help you."
It took a few seconds for Pickles to realize exactly
what he'd said and then she almost freaked. "You're not
really telling me you think you're guardian angels, are
you?"
Ace nodded. "Actually, we're sort of apprentices."
"You're not even full–fledged angels?"
Coco ignored her. "Oh honey, you're going
to be part of a miracle. Isn't that cool?"
Pickles could almost hear strains of the
Twilight Zone theme song drifting on the air.
"There's this scientific thingie called
parthenogenesis." Coco giggled and waved her hands
around. "I know, I know. I'd never heard of it before
either. But what it means is that you can have a baby
without...you know...sex. Insects do it all the time."
"What do you mean, a baby?"
"You know, ten toes, ten fingers, and a
cute little button nose. You're going to have one."
Pickle's patience had officially come to
an end. "That's it. Get away from me." Damn it, why she
couldn't she hop off the stool and run away?
Ace jumped into the
conversation. "Everything's going to be fine. We all need
to stay calm," he said, shooting his cohort a glare, but
that didn't stop her monologue.
"People are so cynical and skeptical they
refuse to believe in miracles." Coco leaned forward as if
she wanted to share a secret. "And that's where you come
in. You're going to have a baby with special musical
talent. Think Elvis. That seems quite appropriate for Las
Vegas, don't you agree?"
Think Elvis! What in the
h–e–double toothpicks did she mean by that?
Pickles skipped over the part about the King of Rock and
Roll and went straight to what she considered most important
"Pregnant! You're telling me I'm
pregnant." Hysteria loomed on her horizon. "I can't be
pregnant. I haven't had so much as a sloppy French kiss in
five years. Count ‘em sweetie. She waggled her fingers
in front of Coco's face. "Five! No sex. Get it!"
Pickles heard a gasp and glanced over her shoulder. An
elderly woman stared at her like she'd just jumped out of
an alien spacecraft. Crap! She must have made the sex
comment louder than she thought.
"Think about it," Coco said. "That queasiness you've
been having isn't the stomach flu. You're going to have a
baby."
"That's it!" Pickles grabbed her purse to make a quick
getaway but she could leave Ace spoke.
"Before you go, let me show you something. Look at the
screen." He indicated the video monitor.
Against her better judgment, she glanced at the video
poker machine as a Royal Flush appeared and computer bells
started ringing.
Pickles jumped back. "Oh my God!" she squealed and then
took off runnning.
"I'm not sure God would approve of our little trick,"
Coco said and then yelled at Pickles' retreating
back. "Pick up an EPT kit so you don't have to make a
second trip."
Pickles didn't bother to look back. Instead, she
sprinted down the soap aisle as if the hounds of the
Baskervilles were nipping at her heels.
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