Introduction

Val Shakely is a list-maker. Daily routine. Check. Calm, quiet (but successful) business. Check. No drama. No excitement. Some might call it boring, but it’s precisely the way Val likes it. She loves her hometown of Cambria, nestled in the mountains of Colorado, and runs a fruitful PR firm. It's more than enough for Val. So what if she doesn’t have a social life? Then, her cousin Gwen decides to take on the local political bully, Mayor Roger Barton, in head-to-head combat for his poisition, and Val takes her company reluctantly, and against her better judgment, into the fray. The minute Val takes on Gwen’s campaign, the safe world she carefully constructed begins to unravel. She feels the pressure of the campaign and the personal attacks by Barton. And as if that wasn’t complicated enough, Val finds herself falling in love with local businessman John Hatfield, a man just as boring as her at first glance. Both charming and confrontational, Val is drawn to John in a way that cracks the simplicity of her life. In the end, Val’s desire to stay on the sidelines is put to the test and she’s forced to reexamine the life she’s built as she trudges toward a new and more exciting future.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 1


Val Shakely was at a proverbial standstill. The world turned; she went about her life in an orderly and systematic way. But at some point, she’d gotten stuck. And she was happy to stay stuck. It was uncomplicated. If you stayed stuck, life would wash around you, like water around a boulder in the middle of a river. You could hide yourself in plain sight. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

* Cambria is a fictional city in Colorado. In the book it seems like a
small town where everyone knows everyone else, and where Val walks towork each morning, but it must be large because there are 127,000
registered voters (Chapter 11). What are some other signs that it is a
large city?

* Is this book aimed at women, or do you think men would like it also?
What are some things men would like about it?

* Is Val stronger, professionally or personally, at the end of the
book? How can you tell? If she is stronger, what are one or two of her
experiences that you think contributed most to this?

* Val seems almost pathologically shy at some points. Why do you think
she chose to be an entrepreneur in the Public Relations field?

* Val describes herself at one point (Chapter 2) as the "country
mouse" uneasy in John's "high society". Is this accurate, or is she
more adroit than she lets on? Give examples.

* John, although not shy, is repeated described as "reclusive".
However, he frequently appears at social events, is well-known and
recognized about town, and seems to have good social skills. How
reclusive is he, really?

* John is a rich kid from a leading family while Val, although not of
humble origins, comes from a solidly middle-class mercantile family.
Do any of their many conflicts come from their difference in
backgrounds? Give examples.

* What is the importance of Jabber in the story line? In ancient Greek
tragedy the chorus always knew the truth and spoke it. Does Jabber
play that role here, or is it just stirring the pot to keep the story
moving?

* How does the Jabber blogger find out so much and get such good
photographs without anyone finding out who he/they are?

* The back-cover blurb describes Mayor Barton as a bully. Is this
accurate, or is he just strong-willed? Can you think of any bullies
who held public office?

* Val is described (Chapter 1) as being a few years older than her
cousin Gwen, but Gwen seems to be the dominant one in all their
interactions. Why is Val so agreeable? Does Gwen bully Val?

* There are two major crisis points in the book: one in Chapters 9-10
where Val was kicked off the board of the Community Foundation through Mayor Barton's machinations and takes several "mental health days", and one in Chapter 14 where she is menaced in person by Mayor Barton. Her reactions are very different in the two crises. Why?

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