I lost interest in this book very, very quickly but made a point of struggling to the end, for no other reason than to analyse my negative reactions and compose an informed if not balanced review.

The cover of [b:How to Trap a Tycoon|932722|How to Trap a Tycoon|Elizabeth Bevarly|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179576750s/932722.jpg|1624567] screams CHICK-LIT, as do the metatags on most of Ms Bevarly's long backlist of similar novels. The book starts off in character, introducing a cheerful and intelligent heroine who's holding down two jobs: Teaching assistant at a small women's college, and bartender at an exclusive men's club. We discover that she's also the secret author of the eponymous How to Trap a Tycoon best-seller, which she often discusses with her Sociology 101 students in college and hottie Adam Darien, a real-life publishing tycoon who frequents the exclusive men's club at which heroine Dorsey MacGuiness ("Mack") works the evening shift.

Sales of Mack's book escalate and her publisher insists that she adopt the persona of the fictional author and begin to work the promotion circuit. Mack reluctantly agrees to go through with the charade as the profits from the book are intended for her tycoon-trapping mother Carlotta, who is quickly running out of patrons and sugar daddies and uncertain about her financial future. Carlotta also happens to be the inspiration and informant for the book, most of which is based on experience gained from a lifetime of horizontal liaisons with the rich, famous...and married.

From this point on, the narrative could have gone in one of several directions. Ms Bevarley could have focused on the improbable but entertaining double-life that Mack is forced to lead, or the parallel between the calculated tycoon-trapping in her book and the natural attraction that's developing between Mack and Adam. Instead, she brings two side characters to the fore and the story begins to lose balance. Lucas, the top writer for Adam's flagship Man's Life magazine, proposes an expose of the 'real' author of How to Trap a Tycoon. Adam decides he'd like to do it himself and assigns Lucas to spoof the best-seller with a feature on How to Trap a Female Tycoon. Lucas has little success in his venture, mainly because he's too besotted with Edie, another bartender at Mack's club. Adam stalks 'Lauren Grable-Monroe', Mack's alter persona, on her lecture and book-signing tour, and the reader has to swallow the premise that an itchy blond wig, heavy make-up, bra padding, and killer clothes are sufficient to make Mack unrecognisable to someone who's spent most evenings chatting with her over a bar counter.

Instead of cranking up the action, Ms Bevarly slips into extremely long and very tedious internal monologues from each of the four leading characters: Mack, Adam, Lucas and Edie. She then throws in broken homes, adoption, abuse, prostitution, emotional trauma and an oppressive deadweight of other plot devices that belong in another genre and, more unfortunately, don't make sense.

What could have been a light-hearted romantic comedy morphs into a bipolar pastiche of a mainstream romance, and a poor one at that.

I've no idea how or why an established writer could have let narrative and characterisation get so out of hand. Carelessness? Haste?

And how could the multiple iterations of 'Ghandi' instead of 'Gandhi' have made it through the editorial process? ( )

A light but enjoyable romance that might best be described as 'chick lit'. Dorsey is a serious academic who is working on her PhD in sociology. Using a pen name she has written a book called "How to Trap a Tycoon" that has become a major best seller. Now the publisher is insisting on a book tour, etc. which threatens her academic credibility, her after-hours job and her fragile new romance.

This novel had been on my shelves for a long time but I had never read it. When I did pick it up to read I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

From BackCover:
How Do You Trap A Tycoon?

Dorsey MacGuiness wrote the "foolproof" how-to guide to marrying a millionaire that everyone's talking about. And now her runaway bestseller is running away with her life! By day she's a staid sociology professor, but other times she's a sultry bombshell. The trouble is she's falling hard for one of her "research subjects"—a rich, elusive risk-taker who is the exact opposite of everything the practical Hollie dreams of!

You Let Him Trap You!

Sexy, self-assured Adam Darien is the publisher of one of the nation's leading men's magazines. And if he ever discovers that the incognito lovely who's tending bar at his favorite club is, in reality, the author of that book, his hot passion for her may cool p.d.q. But Hollie's growing love for Adam surprises even herself, and she's planning to enjoy his strong arms and soft kisses for as long as she can keep her double life a secret. And who knows? Maybe she can follow a few of her own rules and marry this magnificent magnate. ( )