My favorite author has done it again. Mary Frame’s Some Like It Fox is a fast and funny read with characters you really, really wish would walk into your real life.
I admit I didn’t think much of Taylor Fox when I first met her, but by the end I’d have welcomed her as a new best friend. Except for one big drawback: if Taylor became an important person in your real life, you’d be honour-bound to keep your paws off Atticus Stone. That would be a Mission Impossible, right up there with staying on a diet if you worked in a chocolate factory.
As Some Like It Fox opens, Taylor is heading home for a family gathering. She gets caught in a snowstorm and takes shelter in a neighbour’s home, where Atticus Stone is housesitting for his parents.
Taylor wasn’t exactly my favorite cup of brewed beverage when the book started. She has been spending her life (wasting it?) working just long enough to fund her way to the next music festival for more fun, games, and the occasional new hook-up.
Atticus had had a giant crush on her in high school, so one thing leads to the inevitable other, and there we go again with a hook-up. Then she falls asleep on our hero and bolt, before the night and/or the hookup is half over.
Our hero, meanwhile, is just the kind of guy you want to yell at through the whole book, hoping he’ll hear you saying that, if she doesn’t want to treat him right, you’ll be happy to step in. Atticus Stone, you see, is a rock, in the best sense of the word, and a maestro at making love who doesn’t know the meaning of the words “give too much”. He falls in love all over again with Taylor, so much so that he’ll take what little she has to give.
The kids in the Fox family have all had it tough. Their Mom disappeared when most of them were very young, their Dad died early, and they were all scarred by the tragic accidental death of a sister in her teens.
Mindy Fox took her grief out on Taylor, and we had a ringside suit on those body blows in the previous book in this series, Another Fox Bites the Dust. Author Mary Frame managed a miracle in that book too, making us forgive and forget the rotten behaviour.
In Some Like It Fox, it’s Taylor who must learn how to forgive, along with how to stop running from what hurts. Most of us know how exactly how tough that can be.
Besides, you have to take a shine to someone who can make Atticus as happy as she does on the way toward a happy that really can last forever. And she does turn out to be a genius at multi-media musical events.
My favorite Mary Frame book is still her first, Imperfect Chemistry. It provides the perfect picture of a dorky genius nerd.
Still, the fourth book in the Fox Family series is a follow-up you don’t want to miss. I’m taking bets that the same will go for Fox Number Five.