In San Diego for New Year’s Eve, Hannah Davis is determined to make up for her four-year dry spell. She has spent most of those years engaged to a soldier who has recently died a hero. As she prepared to mourn him, she discovered he hadn’t bothered to inform her he had married someone else. No wonder the girl has a lot of insecurity issues. On the look-out for a consolation prize, Hannah gets Tanner Hart.

The ex-secret service agent is going through his own dry spell - but what’s a mere eleven months to Hannah’s four years? Tanner has his issues, and here he outdoes Hannah: he feels guilty for the events which play out in Must Love Mistletoe. He is responsible for the death of a fellow agent; responsible for the loss of another agent’s eye; responsible for the media frenzy surrounding him and some celebrity princess; and, yes, even responsible for the bad weather. Tanner doesn’t think he deserves or needs or wants a woman. But apparently, when one dry spell meets another, you get some explosive action.

Or you would if one of the dry spells didn’t fall asleep before anything could happen. That would be Hannah. She wakes up the next day in Tanner’s bed, quite ready to put her first one-night stand behind her. Fate and the imperatives of the plot decree otherwise. Her uncle, a head honcho at the secret service and Tanner’s former boss, has ordered Tanner to give her a tour of San Diego. Sex between them is inevitable and inevitably explosive. In between testing out different positions, they take a mellow but sincere look at their issues.

Thrown in there is a subplot about Tanner’s brother, Troy, and Desiré, the princess who was caught kissing Tanner eleven months earlier. They too have issues and dry spells. The daughter of an American model and an Arab prince, Des has the part of the spoilt little rich girl with an unspoken wish to be loved. It takes the tough, battle-weary ex-Marine a while to realize this. When he does, things between them are similarly explosive. Predictable as their story sounds, it is sweet and touching and all in all well done.

That, in more than two words, is my verdict for the novel as whole. It may be thin on character, thin on plot, but it’s still worth a read - and not just because it’s thick on sex. Although we’ve heard this story many-a-time and seen these characters once too often, they come alive long enough to captivate and charm. If you’re after a well- written, light-hearted piece of fluff (and yes, sometimes that’s exactly what I want), Not Another New Year’s might be just the thing.

--Mary Benn