After
being dumped by the last bad boy she’s ever going to date, Calliope meets her
Hispanic prince charming. Peter
Delgadillo is the perfect gentleman, sure, but he’s also extremely easy to look
at with a flirtatious grin, naturally tanned skin that just radiates over
gorgeous muscle, and the potential to be Calliope’s passionate Latin lover who
whispers sweet Spanish nothings into her ear.
Hmmm. If only she could convince
him that she is his Caucasian love goddess.
However, Peter wants to remain in the ‘just amigos’ category.
Well, that is until a pipe bursts and they are forced to stay with
Peter’s mother. He confesses that in
order to ease his mother’s ailing heart, they need to act like a couple in
love. Pretend to adore one another? Play the part of the adorable girlfriend
while getting to touch, fondle, cuddle and cozy up to the man that she’s been
madly in love with for years? No problemo!
However,
nothing is getting past Peter’s mother, Margarita, who is not fond of the new
white girl who doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t know the culture and doesn’t
eat meat! With quite the language barrier
and culture shock, Calliope struggles to keep her end of the bogus relationship
bargain especially when she begins to realize that their friendship may break
her heart. Oh, and then there’s Peter’s
brother, Eddie, who threatens to blow the secret wide open because he knows
it’s all an act. With a love triangle
right out of a Spanish novella,
Calliope tries to figure out what’s real and what isn’t so her heart won’t take
another blow.
One
white girl, one fake boyfriend who should be The One, one ice cold Margarita who’s determined to drive her out
and the one guy who knows it’s all a sham.
It’ll be a wonder if this white girl will survive in la casa…
This was such a good book. I absolutely love it when an
author can draw me in to a romance and keep me laughing. Ms. Jeanne did it
superbly. I devoured this book in a matter of hours. So that you can fully
grasp how much I enjoyed White Girl in La Casa, I received a paperback copy to
read and review and plan to purchase it as an eBook so that I can read it again
whenever I want without having to worry about where I put it.
Calliope is the white girl in question. She is blonde and
has Swiss, Irish and/or Scottish roots, so she is WHITE-white. And she has been
in love with her best friend Peter since the day she met him in college. They
finished college and moved in to an apartment together (separate bedrooms) and
after four years, he has kept her firmly in the friend-zone despite her making
it clear that she wanted more. After a pipe bursts in their apartment, Peter
makes arrangements for them to stay with his mother while their apartment
undergoes repairs. After a series of events and decisions that make no sense –
but stick with them, because they are explained much later in the book – Calliope
agrees to pretend to be Peter’s girlfriend while they are staying at his
mother’s. Calliope quickly learns that even after living together for four
years there are a lot of things about Peter she did not know, especially how
big of a “mama’s boy” he is. She realizes that she does not like this version
of Peter and comes to accept their status of “just friends” more easily.
While she may be disillusioned by Peter, she is dazzled by
his brother Eddie. Eddie lets her know in no uncertain terms that he knows her
relationship with Peter is fake and begins to pursue her, subtly at first and
then not so subtly once she begins to respond to him. Their sexual encounter in
the kitchen is HOT … as would be expected from a Latin lover who is also a
chef.
Ms. Jeanne takes us on a hilarious and entertaining ride as
Calliope and the Delgadillo family cross cultural boundaries, language
barriers, and clashing diets (she’s vegan and Mama Delgadillo is NOT), while
Calliope must figure out which brother she really wants or if she has to let
them both go. If you enjoy a good laugh while falling in love, then give this
White Girl a chance to charm you because she is far more entertaining than the
“albino monkey tossing my poo” that she likens herself to.
A Wet Stick in One Hand
and a Pile of Regret in the Other
We should probably get this out of the way right at the
beginning. At the moment, I’m sitting in an after math pile of impending
doom accompanied by a broken heart. It may have been my own doing but,
since I am loyal to myself and my female companions, I’ll do what any gal in my
position would do and blame the male species for bringing me to this cold
toilet seat first thing in the morning. But first, I’m Calliope
Duncan. That’s pronounced Cal-I-O-pee for all of you that want to say it
like Call-ee-Ope. I get it a lot. I’m a white chick, better yet,
I’m a Caucasian female about to turn thirty with long blond hair that probably
came from my mother who was once Swiss but now just plain crazy and my dad who
was once an odd mix of Irish or Scottish or something like that, but now he’s
just dead. So, for all you newbie geneticists out there, a Swiss mommy
and an European-ish daddy still make a blond haired, green eyed little girl who
basically just gets lumped into the graduating class of white chicks.
I’ve parked my ivory tush on the porcelain seat in my
bathroom so that I can wait for the next three minutes to slowly tick by to see
if the problems I’ve created for myself are going to become an even bigger
disaster. As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve just peed on a stick
that is going to tell me how big of an idiot I am. On the flip side, I
could be free and clear to forget everything that has happened over the past
two months and move on to find some other idiot that’s going to break my
heart.
The box said to face the stick of doom straight down, pee
on it for five seconds and then lay it flat with the cap on it. Sounds so
nice, easy and clean, but it’s really not. My hands were shaking the
whole time which then made my urine go in ten different directions and trying
to catch it on the stick for a whole five seconds was like trying to chase down
run away poodles in a circus. I almost dropped the damn pee stick in the
toilet after about two seconds. I’m a little stressed, can’t you tell?
I opted for the pink line version test rather than that digital
thing in fear that technology wouldn’t just tell me pregnant or not pregnant
but something more like, You’re An Idiot, while I waited the three
agonizing minutes.
It’s probably been one minute by now…nope fifteen
seconds. Crud. I could clean my bathroom mirror while I wait.
But would the fumes screw up the test? Not sure if there are pregnancy
hormones in ammonia. Better be safe. I could leave the bathroom and
start breakfast. Pancakes maybe. But what if I only have a short
window and then the results disappear leaving me in peril once again? Now
I’m sitting here thinking about pancakes and I’m not sure if I’m feeling
nauseous about eating. This could be morning sickness or it could be the
gripping fear that is tightening my throat tempting me to dry heave. Either
way, I’m starting to sweat a little.
The stick is sitting on the lip of the sink working its
little magic and I can’t see the window of fate from where I’m sitting.
With two more minutes left to contemplate my mistakes, I can only think of
Peter and how much this may ruin everything we ever had between us and how
Eddie would just be standing there with his arms crossed with no expression,
which only makes me want to murder them both in a possibly impregnated fit of
rage. Two months ago, I would have been standing with the seamstress
having my wedding gown fitting before Peter could have even got out the
question “Calliope, would you marry—” “Yes, of course Peter, hold on,
Miss Seamstress, does the veil come attached to the tiara and can you
make sure the darts make my cleavage pretty but not skanky? ”
Yup, Peter was my world. I was sloppy drunk in love
with him. He beckoned, I called. I was his Julia Roberts and he was
my Richard Gere, but we were like the end of the movie with the roses and the
limo since I’m not a hooker with a wig or anything. Although, we did have
some pretty steamy carpet picnics. Well, we had a carpet picnic
but it was because our refrigerator was broken and we were kind of forced to
sit on the floor over Fritos and beer. And it didn’t end with my head in
his crotch over a Lucy episode either. But now? With Peter?
Well, I’m not sure where we will stand, especially in about two minutes and
fifteen seconds.
It’s a weird kind of limbo, once you’ve peed on the stick,
to wonder if there is a little tiny being in you or not. On one hand, it
thrills me to think that I’m making something in my belly, but it scares the
hell out of me at the same time. My mind skitters from cribs and
pacifiers and breast feedings at two in the morning and it’s a weird smile that
creeps to my lips. But then I’ll have to walk back into that house and
explain everything and my heart sinks just thinking about that. Because
the father to this potential tadpole is gone. And he hasn’t even called
after what happened. There’s a pit in my stomach and suddenly my anxiety
is rearing its ugly little head. Waiting for the stick is like waiting
for an answer to the rest of my life like a demented eight ball.
Booger is starting to meow at the bathroom door and do that
little kitty scraping thing against the wood that is quite annoying. He’s
very insistent when he wants to be especially when he hasn’t had
breakfast. “One minute, twenty seconds left Booger,” I tell him but he
just tells me “let me in dammit, so I can sit at your feet and watch you sweat
over a stick.” Well, he just meows, but I know how Booger
thinks. “If this stick has two lines Booger, that means you become
number two on my attention giving list and you won’t be happy about it,” I
advise him but he just yells louder and his paw appears in the crack under the
door.
With one more minute to go, some asshole starts pounding on
my front door and it just about makes me jump off the toilet. “Are you
kidding me?” I grunt as I get up, intentionally not looking at the stick
and pull on a robe to cover my boobs since I’ve only got a thin shirt on over
my jammy shorts that have holes in them in not so feminine places.
“Booger, go answer the door,” I tell him but he just sits there looking
hungry. He has that spiteful kitty look of boredom and irritation.
“Fine, be that way.”
I shut the bathroom door, tie my robe around me, and head
towards the door. The stick will have to wait.
Christa Jeanne lives and writes in the Los Angeles area, which means at any given
moment she is likely to be stuck in traffic somewhere. When she isn’t writing her next romantic
comedy, she is either busy getting clobbered at Candyland by her daughter,
educating anyone who will listen about how her son with autism is going to
change the world one day, or lovingly doting on her handsome, charming,
intelligent and perfect husband (who totally fed her that line). Christa is the ringleader of her circus at
home and as soon as the kids go to bed, she can be found at her computer
rocking out to a playlist that matches the mood of the current book she’s hammering
out. She loves writing about the funnier
side of love since falling in love can be pretty hilarious sometimes.
Her latest book is the romantic comedy, WhiteGirl in La Casa.
Christa loves visitors, so please visit her at www.christajeannebooks.com.
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