What They Say
Powerhouse romance editor Keira Madison is known as “Cover Girl” – because she’s come up with the concepts for the covers of the best selling novels in history. But right now, she’s desperate to replace her best selling author.  Wannabe author Alex Bauer has given up hope of ever selling his military thriller, so he takes a shot at writing a romance and sends it to super agent Bella Farentino. She’s blown away by the book, but more shocked to find out the author is a man. So she decides it’s best to keep it a secret when pitching the novel – what does a man know about romance after all?  When Keira buys the book, Alex needs a cover story to hide the fact he’s the real author. So he invents a fictional cousin who’s an agoraphobe; too shy to ever leave the house. He agrees to work as “her” intermediary during the editing process while getting a friend to “play” the author on the phone.One major problem. He falls hard for Keira, a spunky redhead who is a dead ringer for the heroine in the book. And she’s smitten with him, as he’s a clone of the novel’s romantic hero, a fictional Mister Right come to life.  You see where this is going. As the release date for the book gets closer, their relationship grows stronger while the tale of the fictional author goes over the top. At some point Alex will have to come clean that he’s the real author of the book but worries he’ll risk losing Keira because she won’t be able to trust him. It’s “Tootsie” meets the publishing world… without anyone getting dressed up in drag.
My Review
I'm quite the fan of Nic Tatano. He's such a talented writer and can write both Chick Lit and Young Adult, but Cover Girl didn't work for me. I'm not a fan of love triangles (or squares in the case of Lauren, Alex, Dash and Keira). It's hard to root for Alex and Keira when they're both playing the field. That's not the kind of romance I want, where they're dating others. Especially since I LOVED Lauren.

Keira was apparently this kick-ass editor, but we never saw that in her real life (or in her editing cave, to be fair). Gretchen was far more kick-ass, and even the lovely Lauren made more of an impression. In fact, I felt Lauren was wasted, she should have had her own novel.

I LOVE books about books, and I thought the plot sounded amazing, but it was sooooo wasted. I wanted to read more about a guy writing romance, I wanted to know what the reaction from the public would be (for what it's worth, I LOVE books written by ANYONE - as long as they're good, I couldn't care less what the gender is of the writer). The plot was more focused on the love square and I was so bored by it.

Overall, I was disappointed. I expected so much more and it just wasn't as good as Tatano's other novels. I actually would have preferred to read Alex's version of Ring Girl, which sounded like a really sweet, under-complicated love story. You can never under-complicate a love story and I think the main problem with Cover Girl was it was too complicated.