Catch Her If You Can

Catch Her If You Can by Tessa Bailey, 336 pages

Eve first saw Madden when they were in high school, and while she was immediately attracted to him she didn't speak up, letting her best friend's crush on Madden keep her away from him, even though he was obviously attracted to Eve. Now adults, Eve has taken over her late father's strip club and rebranded it as a burlesque venue (though she's still fighting the stigma of her father's business) and has taken in her niece and nephew while their mom goes to rehab. Meanwhile, Madden just got called up to catch for the Yankees. Still harboring a crush on his longtime friend, Madden offers to marry her so that Eve and her niblings have health insurance and some financial stability. While Eve agrees to the platonic plan, her stipulation that they remain friends (and spouses only for the financial benefits) doesn't hold up very long as their mutual attraction soon becomes abundantly clear.

This was a quick, spicy read, but it is far from my favorite romance novel this year. There's something off about Eve and Madden's relationship, and Eve seems like she needs therapy, not a relationship with the dude she's been pining over for years. Meh.

The Mars Room

The Mars Room / Rachel Kushner, 338 pgs. read by the author

The Mars Room is a seedy strip club in San Francisco.  Romy Hall, a stripper known as Vanessa is the main character in this book.  She is serving a couple of life sentences for killing a man who stalked her.  She is flawed as is the justice system that ignores her circumstances and provides only an overworked public defender to decide her fate.  Romy's story is not the only one we hear. There are fellow prisoners, staff, some people whose connection is not obvious to me.  Everyone is quirky and interesting with a unique story.  I think the book makes clear there isn't an easy way to classify the people, their situations and the circumstances that bring them to the novel.  At first I was unsure of the author reading this book but ended up enjoying the audio version very much. The voice of Romy comes through very convincingly.

Strip Tease

Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen  353 pp.

This is an early (1993) novel by Hiaasen that was later adapted into the movie Striptease. It is the tale of Erin, a young divorcee working as an exotic dancer in a sleazy strip club while trying to regain custody of her young daughter from her drug abusing, criminal ex-husband. When a somewhat deranged Congressman assaults a customer in the club the resulting cover up puts Erin in danger. This is far from Hiaasen's best work. There are plenty of quirky characters and somewhat amusing parts but it doesn't reach the levels of his later novels.