Maria Geraci | What Kind of Girl Are You?

In my Bunco Babes books, the central characters have been friends for years. They get together every Thursday night to drink frozen margaritas, roll dice, and gossip about the inhabitants of their small north Florida town. The three main characters I introduced in the first book, Bunco Babes Tell All, were labeled as "the nice one," "the sharp one" and "the hot one". Unconsciously as a writer, I don’t set out to create the theme for my books. Theme is something that naturally results from the plot. But after I wrote the book (and figured out what it was really about) I discovered that my main character, Kitty, had to come to grips with the eternal question of the ages. Just what kind of girl are you?

Too often, like the characters in my books, we get labeled at an early age. You know the labels I’m talking about- the smart one, the pretty one, the goofy one... And after a while, we start to believe it ourselves. But sometimes (like Kitty had to find out in Bunco Babes Tell All) in order to achieve our highest potential (or win your happily-ever-after!) you have to break out of the mold.

Recently, to celebrate the November release of my second book, Bunco Babes Gone Wild , I ran a contest over at my website titled Which Bunco Babe Are You? After a series of 7 fun questions your score will tell you whether you’re a Kitty (the nice one), a Shea (the hot one) or a Pilar (the sharp one). The quiz is meant in fun, but I found out something while testing it among my local friends. Almost every single time I could pretty much predict which Bunco Babe a friend would turn out to be. In my mind, I’d created labels for my own friends. Or maybe it was just that I knew them so well I could predict which answers they’d choose. Either way, it was an interesting revelation.

I took the quiz myself and turned out to be a Kitty. While I love Kitty (after all, I created her!) the quiz made me think. Am I really as much of a doormat as she can be sometimes? Do I have to occasionally be a Shea or maybe a Pilar to demand what’s rightfully mine? I’m not sure about the answers to those questions, but I do think that while those 7 questions don’t completely define which kind of girl I am, neither do any of the labels I’ve been given throughout my life.

In Bunco Babes Gone Wild, my heroine, Georgia, has to come to grips pretty quickly with the fact that she might not be the kind of girl she’s always thought she was. Here’s an excerpt to give you a taste of what I mean!

Excerpt from BUNCO BABES GONE WILD, November, 2009

Dave pulled off his jeans. Underneath he had on a pair of board shorts. Georgia crossed her arms over her chest. "That’s a bathing suit."

"You sound disappointed."

"Well, I’m not."

He gave her a look that said he didn’t believe her. "Your turn." "I’m not stripping down to my underwear."

"Suit yourself."He walked out the sliding glass doors and onto the beach.

Georgia watched, blatantly jealous as he dove into the cool blue water.

He made her feel prudish. But she wasn’t a prude. There was just something... unnerving about him. Like she was betraying Spencer. Which was ridiculous. Dave had absolutely nothing over Spencer. Spencer was classically handsome, smooth, successful, smart, urbane, thoughtful (well, most of the time).

Dave on the other hand, was just sort of good looking. Sure, he had a nice butt and every once in a while he could be funny, but he was like beer. It was tasty, but who wanted beer if you could have champagne? And she was definitely a champagne kind of girl.

If Dave could strip down to almost nothing, then so could she. Besides, he’d already seen her boobs. And it wasn’t like she was naked. She was wearing a bra and underwear. Her bikini was a lot more revealing than-

Her fingers froze on the jeans zipper.

Shit. She’d forgotten she was wearing granny panties.

But that was good, wasn’t it? It was in no way revealing. Or sexy. Or anything remotely connected to sexy.

She bit her bottom lip. What if Dave thought this was the sort of underwear she wore all the time? She craned her neck to see him floating on top of the calm water. It looked absolutely blissful.

A river of sweat ran down her back, pooling into her already damp jeans.

The hell with it. What did she care what Dave Hernandez thought of her underwear?

She peeled off the jeans and dumped them onto the floor. Just stripping down felt good. She could only imagine how the cool ocean water would feel next to her overheated skin. She’d keep the sweaty T-shirt on till the last second. Just in case someone should come by.

She waded over the shore and dipped her toe into the ocean. Dave was still floating, oblivious to her.

"Go ahead, it feels great," he called out.

What? Did he have eyelids on the side of his head?

"Don’t look!" she yelled, hastily working her way out of the T-shirt. She dumped it onto the sand then ran into the water and dove in. It felt as delicious as she had imagined, the salty water all cold and tingly against her skin. She surfaced and planted her feet on the sandy bottom. The water was chest deep.

"What wasn’t I supposed to look at?" Dave asked, coming out of his floating position. He ran his hand through his wet hair, slicking it back. It emphasized his strong cheekbones and square jaw. Her gaze drifted lower, to his mouth. She remembered how slowly he’d kissed her-

"Nothing," she said, relieved that he’d obviously not caught sight of her granny panties. She’d worry later about him seeing them when they got out of the water.