Kat Cavanaugh returns to Persuasion, West Virginia, to tell her former high school boyfriend that he's the father of her twenty-year-old son. It's a standard romance novel set up that Donovan handles with sympathy and humor.

Yet it fails to keep the reader's interest. So what exactly went wrong? The characters are likable enough and fairly well developed; the storyline is marginally interesting but also highly predictable. The supporting characters are characteratures and stereotypes and do little to increase interest.

Donovan has written much better books; she's sleep walking though this one. And unfortunately the reader nods, yawns, and follows along.

There are far worse books out there; therefore I'm giving this one three stars. It's not an awful read, just not the book that it could have been. ( )

Susan Donovan is a writer who's very good at combining humor and romance. So when I pick up one of her books, I know she'll have me grinning and lift my spirits. "Girl Most Likely To..." surprised me. Not because it's not humorous, but because Donovan managed to inject her humor into a story that's quite touching and all about love and forgiveness.

Kat had a miserable childhood. Her artist father cheated and beat her mother, her mother quietly put up with it, and when Kat was 16 her best friend and lover dumped her before she could tell him she was pregnant. So Kat left town that night with $83 and a heap of fear and bitterness. She lucked out and ended up with a wonderful woman who was everything her mother couldn't or wouldn't be to Kat. Now it's twenty years later and Kat has come back to her hometown for a bit of revenge. But she didn't count on how things can look a bit different when viewed as an adult vice a sixteen year old...nor did she count on still loving the father of her child.

I just reread my book synopsis and it doesn't sound funny. And I guess the situation isn't, but Susan Donovan finds the humor in the different relationships Kat has with friends and family. There's even a secondary romance with Kat's best friend, an Italian from Baltimore, and her old boyfriend's brother. There's also a psycho ex-fiancee stalker, a gossipy inn-keeper, and a wonderful hound dog. This novel has hot sex, laughter, tears, pain, and forgiveness. And best of all, you end it with a big smile on your face. ( )