You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO is from Kaye and she’s hoping to find this Harlequin title:
I’m looking for a book and it’s definitely a Harlequin book I read in my teens. The book was possibly older than that, since I’m now 25 so maybe early 2000?
Anyway, all I remember is that this book was about a girl sort of transforming this guy, so he could get a business deal. Things got hot and heavy between them and he took her to a business dinner. She was her vibrant, awesome self, but apparently the conservative potential business partners didn’t mesh well with her. The hero told her it was her fault because she was too flighty and awesome. She then basically changed herself for him and wore all black to an event and lost her sparkle.
He realised his mistake and that he’s an ass and all was good. In the epilogue, they have a scene in his office where he’s like why did you wear the dress with a million buttons on it; it will take me forever to take it off.
Looking back it’s clearly an awful book but you know…nostalgia.
He sounds like a jerk, but I think we can all relate to that nostalgic feeling.
It sounds like an early Jennifer Crusie, but I can’t remember which one. The Cinderella Deal maybe? He had to appear married or something and took her to some function.
Yes, I agree with Jen! It does sound like one of the Crusie’s, but to me it sounds a bit like Strange Bedpersons, except Cinderella Deal definitely has the dress thing, at the heroine’s art show or some such. But I don’t think it has the bit about him being rejected due to her flighty awesomeness, I think she helps him snag the deal, which is a professorship as I recall. Strange Bedpersons has the heroine trying to find a person who she knew at her old commune where she grew up (her parents are full-on hippies) so she can publish a book based on a story he used to tell.
Tanvee is probably right. I binged on all her early books a long time ago, and the details ran together. 🙂
What Jen and Tanvee said… Cinderella Deal definitely has the stuffy black dress which Linc removes… and flings out a window, during the heroine’s art show, no less.
Clearly time to revisit some Crusie. I would never have guessed it from the description! It’s amazing to me how often these HaBOs turn out to be books I’ve read, and no inkling of recognition on my part.
I have a real soft spot for ‘The Cinderella Deal’, even though the hero’s a bit of an asshole and I suspect the heroine would be wildly irritating in real life.
Confirming it is The Cinderella Deal.
I don’t know – I love The Cinderella Deal but I’m not sure the details really fit. I just looked it up, and there’s no final scene in his office with a dress with a million buttons. It was pub by Bantum not Harlequin – it came out in 1996 and was reissued in 2010.
I feel like “stuffy hero tries to get vibrant heroine to tone down” is not that uncommon – I’m sure I’ve read more than one variation on that, but I’m not coming up with any other ideas.
It reminds me of Lori Foster’s Bringing Up Baby, except there is the whole plot about the heroine having raised the heroes biological daughter thing so maybe it’s not the book your looking for.
Thanks guys i finally got around to reading The Cinderella Deal and I think this may be it actually and im sure there are similar books with this trope too. Thanks all.