Kissa Collins is a romance novelist with writers’ block, and her current book is suffering the consequences. She’s facing publication deadlines, and her characters are simply not cooperating. Add to that her best friend and agent leaning over her shoulder nagging her to get out and get a personal life, and it’s enough to drive her crazy. When her agent suggests that Kissa help choose the male model for her next book cover, she figures that it’s worth a shot. Maybe one of the men will inspire her hero. She is certainly not expecting to find the perfect man there, but she does – one who will change her life and rock her world.

Forbes Huntington is an agent for the FBI. He is less than thrilled with his current assignment, which involves impersonating a male model in order to get close to Kissa Collins. But the Bureau wants to capture Kissa’s uncle, and so far Kissa is their only lead to him. Once Forbes meets Kissa, however, he can’t help but get personally involved and fall in love with her. It’s almost like something out of one of her books.

Their relationship, no matter how seemingly ideal, is based on a lie, and Forbes’s deception comes to light when he arrests Kissa’s uncle. Thoughts of love and marriage and a life together dissolve, because not only has Forbes lied to Kissa, but he has also imprisoned her only family member – a man she grew up idolizing. Can Forbes win back Kissa’s love? It’s certainly not going to be easy. When William Congreve wrote “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” he must have had Kissa in mind.

Marie Rochelle’s Cover Model is a story with a promising premise. Although it falls short of its potential, it still has a number of redeeming qualities.

The story-within-a-story is a good touch and works well in this novel. I was never disappointed when the story segued into Kissa writing her novel, and I wish that Ms. Rochelle had developed this plot device a little further. I found this secondary story of Kissa’s characters Brad and Dru to teeter on the verge of being more interesting than the primary plot.

On the down side, the wording of this story feels somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes it is awkward and choppy and the conversation stilted, but at other times it flows smoothly. This made reading it a little bit frustrating. In addition, there are a lot of protestations of love, but somehow the emotion doesn’t feel genuine to me. This causes the story to drag, and by the time the plot finally arrived at a little danger and action, I had almost lost interest in it.

I have to admit that Kissa’s fury at Forbes is very entertaining, however, and my thoughts when she subjects him to a verbal barrage of her ire are basically “you go, girl!” These brief flashes of spunky heroine throughout the story are definitely what kept me reading Cover Model.


Reviewed by: Whitney