Eye Candy by Tera Lynn Childs

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Lydia Vanderwalk has an obsession with candy, so when she invents an NEB--non-existent boyfriend--who turns out to be the male hire-a-date equivalent of a jumbo box of Hot Tamales she knows she’s in trouble.

Lydia has worked hard to have the right job, the right wardrobe, and the right everything else, in the quest for the appearance of perfection. Fed up by conversation #3,524—not that she’s counting—about long-since-exed fiancé Gavin, Lydia goes to drastic measures to change the subject. When she needs her NEB for a golden career opportunity, she enlists a talent agent friend’s help to produce perfect date Phelps. He was supposed to be pure eye candy, but there’s more going on beneath the surface than Red Hots looks and Pop Rocks spontaneity.

Throw in a banking wunderkind ex-fiancé, a trio of cutthroat couture-climbers, and a designer of questionable orientation and origin, and Lydia soon learns that what you see is often much less than what you get when it comes to people and not everything in life can be solved by a Jolly Rancher and a trip to Ann Taylor.

I have a confession to make.  I am not a chick lit fan.  The exception being the Stephanie Plum series.  And even then I really have to be in the mood.  But after reading Straight Talk and Eye Candy by Tera Lynn Childs, I just might be a convert. 

Eye Candy was a delicious read.  With a secret locked drawer full of candy and an antique silver soup tureen full of gummy bears, Lydia is a girl after my own heart.  The sticky situations Lydia finds herself in are laugh out loud funny and kept me turning the pages to see what happened next.  The constant allusion to candy might be too much for some but I ate it up.  I think Hot Tamale and Double Bubble Damn will probably be making it into my everyday vocabulary. 

And, oh, the ending.  The ending will catch you by surprise.  All I can tell you is that in the words of one of Lydias’s beaus, Tera is a “naughty, naughty girl.” 

I loved both of Tera’s adult contemporary romances.  They are original and fun.  I highly recommend them.  They make for excellent summer reads.

Nat