Harley Jane KozakBesprekingen

After hearing Harley Jane Kozak speak during a panel discussion at the L.A. Times Festival of Books one year, I had to try out her series. A greeting card artist and shop manager, Wollie, isn't the type of person you'd expect to get mixed up in trouble. At least not the kind that puts her life at risk. In an effort to make some extra cash, Wollie has signed up for a research project put on by a radio talk show host who is writing a book. She must date 40 men in 60 days. Doesn't sound so bad except for the fact that she came into the project late and is now rushing to fit in as many dates as she can in a short amount of time. Wollie is also under close scrutiny by the company who she works for as they determine whether she is franchise material or not. But that's just background information.

The trouble comes when Wollie receives a call from her brother about a murder at the mental hospital where he is a patient, discovers a dead body on the road, is taken hostage by a rather good looking and charming man, and becomes a target of the mafia. Yes, this book requires a bit of suspension of that ol' disbelief, but it's actually quite fun and comical.

Wollie is a great character--she doesn't always make the smartest choices, but she certainly is no slouch. There were only a couple of eye rolling moments; and as much as I could see the appeal of her main love interest, he was a bit too perfect. But you know what? That's okay. This book hit the spot and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another fun romp of a whodunnit!

This is the second book with Wolly. The author didn't originally plan to make this a series, but her publisher wanted it. So her boyfriend at the end of the first book, Doc, has left and moved to Japan to be near his ex-wife and their daughter. Wolly is once again participating in a strange project to make money. She is part of a cheap reality show called Biological Clock in which three men and three women date and the audience decides who should have children. They don't actually have to have sex or a child. Through this show, Wolly has made a friend of a young German au-pair also helping on the set. She meets a man who is the opposite of Doc in that he is tall and FBI which is an agency that Wolly's family avoids. Her mother unexpectedly shows up. The fed, Simon, seems to have fallen for Wolly. She finds herself face to face to with a killer and finally realizes who has invented a designer drug and killed a man.

The author is from Nebraska. My mother went to law school with her sister. When Kozak was coming thru on a book tour, I got mom to go with me to listen to her and meet her. I have since picked up all the books in this series. Wollie Shelley, named after the author of Frankenstein, has no interest in investigating crimes. She runs a card shop and dreams of earning the right to own a franchise. She also designs cards. Her brother, PB, is mentally ill, having been struck with this when he became an adult. Wollie finds a dead body when going to see PB at the facility where he is currently living. She has a friend, Joey, who was the star of a tv show called Gun Girl and who married well. Another friend, Fredricka, works at a nail salon and fills in at the card shop as needed. Wollie doesn't want to report the dead body as her brother tends to really wig out when around the police. At the facility, she is taken prisoner by a man she calls Doc and to whom she is really attracted to. They leave in her car and she lets him take her car. He keeps showing up and she gets involved in investigating the crime, mostly because she is afraid of her brother's possible involvement. She is also involved in a dating project, dating man after man for Dr. Cookie who wants to publish a book about dating. So Wollie goes back and froth from dates to investigating and is often stuck in extremely sexy clothes for her dates. There is a contract with a company who supplies the clothing for the dates and she is forced to wear what they supply. She is a very tall blonde (naturally). Lots of humor and suspense in the book. I like Wollie although I don't like all her choices. I listened to this book and really liked that.

If you like the Stephanie Plum series, you'll like Dating Dead Men. Wollie Shelley is a greeting card artist that gets caught up in a murder investigation, with often hilarious results. This book has more than enough twists and quirky characters to keep the reader glued to the book.

If you like the Stephanie Plum series, you'll like Dating Dead Men. Wollie Shelley is a greeting card artist that gets caught up in a murder investigation, with often hilarious results. This book has more than enough twists and quirky characters to keep the reader glued to the book.

An amusing book.

Wollie Shelley manages a greetign card store and is participating in a dating project to earn money to buy the store. On a trip to visit her brother in a mental health institution she discovers a body and meets a good looking man dressed as a surgeon.

I picked this up recently at our local Friends of the Library sale because the title and cover caught my eye. I found myself really enjoying the book, even though I never felt the level of danger equaled the situations in which Wollie and her friends found themselves. In this regard it was incredibly like the Stephanie Plum series which is never a bad thing. Some lines were laugh out loud funny. The end was very compelling and I'm curious to know what happens next to Wollie.

Just realized I read this book 4 years ago! I thought I had read about Wollie somewhere! Just goes to show this book was not very memorable if the only thing I remembered about it was the characters first name!

*I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

If I had guilty pleasures, this series would definitely be one of them! But since I don't (cause I'm really not ashamed of anything I read...), I'll characterize this series as one that provides me with hours of very pleasurable reading and one I most certainly intend on continuing.

Keeper of the Moon is the second book on this series which focus on three cousins who have inherited from their fathers the role of keepers of the supernatural species undercover in our society. This book focus on Sailor Gryffald, the Canyon elf keeper, which I already knew from the previous book. The story starts with Sailor being attacked by a supernatural creature (either a shapeshifter or a vampire) that infects her with a virus deadly only for elves. Sailor thus becomes the most recent victim of a serial killer that has already killed four female elves. Luckly, the fact that Sailor has human DNA as well as elven, means that the virus isn't deadly for her, although it does have some very interesting side effects... Was the attack on Sailor meant to kill her or was it just a warning? And can she discover the identity of the killer in time to stop him from killing again?

I admit I liked Sailor a lot more on this book, since in the previous she had come across as a little silly to me... I liked her romantic interest a lot, Declan Wainwright, one of the shapeshifters keeper, and I also liked their relationship, which evolves as we keep reading and is a very sweet one.

Although I was able to figure out soon who was behind the attacks, I still liked the story a lot. I'm liking more and more this alternate world and its characters. I found the scenes between Sailor and Declan to be slightly hotter than the ones between Rhiannon and Brodie on the previous book but I still would have liked more...

It had already happened on the previous book, but it was more noticeable this time because now they're both secondary characters: I had a hard time distinguishing between Brodie and Barrie because their names are similar. It's nothing much but sometimes I had to stop and reread to understand who the author was refering to.

I hope to read soon the next book on the series, Keeper of the Shadows, which is centered on Barrie Gryffald, the shapeshifter keeper. This time there is no clue as to who her romantic interest will be, but the fact that she is a journalist is enough to make me anticipate a fun mystery.

One final note to the fact that each book on this series is written by a different author. I had never read a series with different authors before, but apparently it's not that uncommon with Harlequin series. I could notice a difference in the writting style but, since the protagonists are different in each book, I think it works really well.

Great read! Lots of plot twists and turns. Loved it.

One of the best mysteries I read in 2007. Wollie Shelley, a greeting-card designer who supports her schizophrenic brother, is trying to make money and get health insurance by participating in a reality=tv show involving dating. She's also trying to finish college and so when her math tutor, a German au pair, disappears, she's highly motivated to find her. Hijinks, as well as murders, ensue. Set in LA, and you can tell the author (who was in the movie Parenthood and others) knows whereof she writes.

First of the Wollie Shelley series and very enjoyable with wacky characters who get involved in very serious trouble.

Harley Jane Kozak's Wollie Shelley series keeps getting better and better. A DATE YOU CAN'T REFUSE, the latest installment in the dating adventures of greeting-card artist Wollie Shelley, is the best yet. The humor and Tinseltown atmosphere are still there, but Kozak has added elements of espionage, a little Ludlumesque paranoia, and further developments in Wollie's personal life. This was a true page-turner for me and I devoutly hope we haven't really seen Wollie ride off into the sunset, as suggested on the last page. Nevertheless, I know by now that I'll enjoy whatever Harley Jane Kozak writes next. Highly recommended.

The book could not keep my attention for more than a few moments at a time. The pace was frenetic, the characters inconsistent and what I understood of the plot was improbable. Miss Golly Wolley wants to own her own business on the one hand but does insane things like breaking into a hospital past midnight to leave her brother aluminum foil for no particularly good reason. Basically she is the kind of woman who walks down a dark alley in the middle of the night and then wonders how she could be so unlucky as to get attacked. Good golly Molly.

I still don't understand this series. Okay, they're Keepers. They were born into this position and are human, but they have the same abilities as the group they keep (for lack of a better term). No one respects them or wants their help and they don't get paid for putting up with all the bullshit they go through. Yeah, I just don't see the benefits of this relationship. I will finish out the series, but that's just because I have to finish what I started.

I was in desperate need of a fun, raucous read -- and Harley Jane Kozak came through for me, once again. A DATE YOU CAN'T REFUSE is a shotgun blast -- or should that be some fancy fully automatic weapon that I'd be completely faking it if I tried to name it? -- of humor, action, romance, compassion, more humor, more romance, more action. Not sure I want to visit Wollie's new friends, but I'd sure like a crack at that shooting range!

This was trying I think for a chick lit feel, with a blend of mystery, humor, and romance told first person in a breezy voice. Wollie Shelley is the proprietor of a card shop and is part of the "Dating Project" requiring her to date 40 men in 60 days. Her life is complicated by her brother, who resides in a mental hospital. Given that the start to this novel reads like whacky, whimsical chick lit--which I wouldn't mind so much, if it had not veered into cheesy, off the rails romance aisle. In this novel, a man takes our heroine hostage and she's in love. The way she sees it, "the guy wasn't a kidnapper...for one thing, there were those dimples." Ooooh Kay. And soon I was out of there. Another Stephenie Plum wannabe that just didn't work for me.

Wollie is under some serious pressure. She is trying to keep her gift card store afloat, she’s in the midst of dating 40 men for research for a book by a famous love doctor, and now, she’s found a dead body.

A patient at the mental hospital where her brother is also staying is found shot to death and while Wollie tries to stay clear of the murder, she ends up getting into it deep.

Now an uber hottie, who may possibly be a convicted felon is trying to keep her safe as mafia men start following her, shooting at her and leaving her threatening messages.

Harley Jane Kozak, who may sound familiar because she is a famous actress, reminds me of Janet Evanovich. We all know that anything that reminds me of Janet is a plus in my book.

I picked this book up at a library sale, not really sure what I was getting myself into, but I am glad I picked it up. It was written well and it kept me reading. I didn’t catch on to who the bad guy was until he outed himself, which I love and hate at the same time. I love a book that makes me laugh, but I felt really bad for Wollie at times in the book. She just wanted to make cards and all this drama just keeps plopping into her lap.

The idea of the dating game was a good plot twist. When she was on dates, I had a hard time remembering that there were guys looking for her who could do some major damage. But, being the girly girl that I am, I kind of hated to go back to the murders and wanted more of the dating scene.

I give Dating Dead Men 4 bookmarks. There are a couple more in this series. If I run across them, I’ll grab them, but they’re not books that I’ll actively search for.

A Date you Can't Refuse is about a graphic artist named Wollie Shelley who is innocently serving jury duty when she gets recruited into a questionable business opportunity. Yuri Milos is the head of this operation and is quite insistent that Wollie be the one he hire. Meanwhile the FBI is requesting that she work for them as a cooperating witness so they may find out more about this questionable business. Let me start by saying that I'm not a big mystery fan but decided to pick up this book based on a great review that I read. Did the book live up to this great review? Not really. That is to say it kept me interested, there was some good humor throughout and the main character is inherently likable. However the story is a bit far-fetched. The writing was good though I felt it wrapped up too quickly leaving some unanswered questions. I also feel like Wollie was a bit laid back about the whole situation she was put in. In other words, she didn't quite have the reactions that I think a *real person* may have. And the title doesn't really apply to the storyline which bugs me. At the very least, its an easy read.

This book was a fun read (or listen, in this case).I loved the main character, Wollie. I should have found her hard to connect with: a 6 foot tall denizen of the L.A. celebrity set (she isn't a celebrity herself, although she has a brush with it), but I was clearly riding through the book with her-- laughing as the situations she got into inspired some of her "alternative greeting cards", worrying about the trouble her best friend was in, concerned about her relationship with her boyfriend.The basic plot was a "someone being framed for murder, best friend to the rescue" standard. The details were unusual, with entertaining twists and turns. She's got a new guy in her life, and doesn't quite know where she stands. She's sleeping in his apartment, with her stuff in a suitcase in her very own walk in closet. Both of them are having a little trouble (or maybe too little trouble) separating work and pleasure: She picks up a job as a "dating correspondent" for a soap gossip show, he's an FBI agent with an undercover role dating a beautiful woman.I don't know if the portrait of life in the community surrounding a soap opera was realistic or not. I don't really care, I enjoyed suspending disbelief. The characters were all exaggerated (in a good way), larger than life. The situations the characters found themselves in were as well.I particularly enjoyed the "You will see Greeks everywhere" thread running through the book. Wollie is commissioned to paint a mural featuring Greek Mythology, in spite of knowing nothing about the subject. She is told that as she learns more, she will notice Greeks and Greek mythology everywhere, and so it happens. Perhaps this should have been more subtle, but subtle doesn't describe anything about this book. In general, I found this book a very quirky read, and one that I enjoyed. I will read more of the series at some point.

Crazy mixed up mystery in the style of Stephanie Plum. Heroine Wollie stumbles on a dead body on the way to visit her brother in the mental hospital after receiving a phone from him saying "murder." Bumps into a man in the elevator with a ferret who she believes to be a doctor and the story takes off. There's mobsters, stolen jewels, a little girl who won't speak and the card store franchise with hookers parading up and down outside the front door. It's one crazy hijink after another before the happy ending.

This is a good light read. Those who like Janet Evanovich will probably enjoy this author. The plot was intriguing and kept me guessing most of the way through. The characters were funny, if not sometimes over the top with their antics.

At times the similarities between the characters of Evanovich's Plum series and the characters in Dating Dead Men were a little too glaringly obvious. The main character, Wolley, is much like Stephanie Plum in that she acts brave while secretly being scared. She does crazy things and has crazy friends. And her love life gets her in trouble. Wolley's good friend and co-worker, Fredreeq, is much like Plum's friend Lula. She dresses outrageously and speaks her mind to everyone. Consequently, I found myself making too many comparisons between the authors and their books.

Overall the book is well-written and enjoyable. Definitely a good choice when you're looking for something not too complicated, that will make you laugh and leave you feeling good at the end.

This installment in this series was not nearly as funny as the others. I prefer main characters to be able to say no when necessary, not be run over (figuratively) by at least half the other characters. The main character keeps being acted upon by multiple characters and through no reason I can see, other than a lack of backbone or sense of self-preservation or positive self-esteem, she just keep reacting instead of being proactive. Much like Stephanie Plum (the Janet Evanovich series), each book "resets" the main character, so she doesn't learn or grow, she just keeps having the same motivation (her brother's mental condition) used against her or to manipulate her, she accepts having frantic sex alternated with fights as a relationship with a man, and is content to accept the status quo in all areas of her life. I do not recommend this book.

Wollie Shelley, fresh from jury duty, is approached by the defendant for a job as a social coach to help with media relations for Eastern Eurpeans new to the US. Yuri Milos is very convincing about the help she can provide to the people of MediasRex, and the pay's not too bad either. Turns out Yuri is being watched by the FBI, and she's also approached by them, to help in their investigation of MediasRex by being their man on the inside. Wollie agrees, and the story meanders into a couple different veins, murder being one of them.½