Hildegard Caldwell, shortened to Hildy by a high school writing teacher, had been voted most likely to succeed by her high school class. Unfortunately, she is in a big time rut and can’t seem to get out of it. She had big dreams of what she would do when she left high school, but her mother was ill so she stayed home, went to a local college and watched after her mother until she recently died. She has bought a house that needs a lot of fixing up, and she was okay with this until she got the invitation to her upcoming ten year high school reunion. Now she is bound and determined that she will break out of her rut; she wants to live and to do something that she didn’t get to do right out of high school. She is renting a house on Long Beach Island for the summer and hopes that she can meet a man that will make her forget her high school boyfriend Michael Amante about whom she still fantasizes. What she doesn’t know is that this summer will change her life.

Michael has not had the best summer in the world being with his fiancée that he’s not even sure that he wants to marry anymore. To break up with her now would be like trying to end a marriage, and he just as soon not deal with the after math. At least not until he sees Hildy. All of a sudden the feelings that he had for her in high school come back to him, and he wants to be with her, permanently. Unfortunately, his fiancée isn’t going to make that easy for him to do so he must decided who he wants to be with Hildy or his fiancée.

Lucy Finn is the only person in the world that can make me stay interested in a romance that is controlled by a genie in a bottle. Oh did I forget to mention that Hildy found a bottle with a genie in it? Sorry about that. It’s very hard to decide who provides the most humor in this story the genie or the characters of the romance. Ms. Finn did a fantastic job with this book because there is so much holding these two apart, and I really had no idea if they would be able to make a go of it or not. You’ll have to read the book yourselves to find the answer to that question, but I do promise that the book is very entertaining with a bit of magic thrown in to keep you on your toes.

Reviewed by: Missy