Leslie Esdaile

BET/Arabesque

April 2002

1-58314-289-4

(4) Jeanette Cogdell

Contemporary Romance

PLOT SYNOPSIS: 

 Four single mothers go in together and throw psychic reading parties. The resident psychic Nikki Gordon, known as "The Love Goddess, " gets into the spirit by dispensing advice to their eager clientele. Private eye Adam Bastille is out to bust their all-girl operation and uncover the true identity of The Love Goddess. But not before Nikki gives Adam a dose of her special potion that soon makes him fall in love--with her!

REVIEW: 

In LOVE POTIONS, four girlfriends decide to combine their special talents to start their own business.  Victoria Jones has operated her own business, a hair salon, for years and offers her place of business after hours.  Delores Thompson works at a bar and knows everybody’s business.  Gail Jackson is a nurse and the best cook around.  Nicole Gordan is a recent divorcee with a young daughter working her way back from the dept her ex left her in.

Being new to the neighborhood with a sexy voice and an exotic island look, Nikki is elected to play the psychic.  Gail mixes up a batch of placebo love potion; they sell them and charge their elite clients for Nikki’s readings and they all stand to make a bundle.  Only none of them knew how successful this venture would turn out to be or that Nikki really does possess the gift of sight.

Investigating the voodoo threats against his cousin, Adam Bastille became one of Nikki’s clients to secretly investigate her.  After Nikki tells him about some things that happened in his past, Adam realizes that Nikki is the “real thing”.  Although he ends up taking his investigation in a different direction, his attraction to Nikki keeps him coming back to see her.

There is an unwritten rule that if there’s a beauty shop involved, there will be a gay hair stylist in said beauty shop.  In LOVE POTIONS, Jo Jo (Joseph) is that person.  This character was treasure to read.  He stole all the scenes he was in and carried a good part of the book.  His antics added excellent comic relief and a few tearjerker scenes too.  I truly enjoyed this character.

Ms. Esdaile has given us a humorous and appealing story. This book however, leans towards the mainstream “sister-girl” books of Terri McMillan fashion. 

The repartee between the friends was quite entertaining, but an earlier meeting of the hero and heroine was preferred.  Once they were brought together on a date (three quarters of the way through the book), it was explosive and this reader wished the interaction had happened sooner.  It would have been interesting to see this relationship build up to that crescendo.

This is not what I would call a romance, but a very good story nonetheless.  It’s truly an enjoyable read.

jeanette@romanceincolor.net (April 9th, 2002)