Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

Narrated by Aasne Vigesaa

A Vintage Review – book released in 2000, audiobook in 2008, review written 2018

There are so many things to love about Welcome to Temptation – starting with the great name; the story by Jennifer Crusie, whose writing style is truly unmatched in contemporary romance; the narration by Aasne Vigesaa, who manages to create complete and complex character voices for each person in the tale; and what about that title! Sophie and Amy Dempsey, daughters of a thousand felons, are driving into the small town of Temptation, Ohio – greeted by the town’s friendly sign, Welcome to Temptation – when they are t-boned by a local couple. The Dempsey women are headed to the home of Clea Whipple to make an audition tape for her. And then everything is turned on its head.

The Dempseys have been cons for time immemorial – their father is currently on the lam, and the women, along with brother Davy, have also picked up the skills. Listeners learn from Sophie early on how to get your mark to agree with you – 1. Make the Mark smile. LOL I was their mark the whole time!

Temptation has had a Phineas T Tucker as mayor almost for time immemorial. The current mayor, Phin, is a young, single father who lives with his 9-year-old daughter and his mother. He runs a book store with a pool table when he isn’t managing town business. He seems an unlikely hero, but in Crusie’s hands, Phin and his best friend Wes, the town’s police chief, are the area’s hottest eligible bachelors. As Clea and Amy bring more and more people into their “audition video”, it morphs into a documentary about the town and then becomes a sequel to Clea’s only claim to fame, a porn flick. Next – almost like a game of Clue or an episode of Murder She Wrote – a character is found dead and everyone is a suspect, because everyone had a reason to hate this guy. Was it Rachel, the daughter of the couple who hit the Dempsey’s car, who has been begging every out-of-towner to help her get out of Temptation? Clea, the dead man’s estranged wife? One of the Dempseys? The local married woman he was sleeping with? The list goes on and on.

In spite of killing off a character (spoiler: it’s not exactly as tragic as it seems), I pretty much laughed out loud all through the story. Sophie is the only Dempsey with a conscience (although she is versed in The Art of the Con) and Amy and Davy are delightfully shame-free with pretty much everything they do and say. Phin is Sophie’s match in every way, and his daughter Dillie is a masterpiece of child-characterization, a tiny con-in-the-making, which really isn’t that far off from many children’s manipulative behavior. Phin’s mother is calculating and cold – Rachel’s a twenty-something with a plan to escape Temptation – Clea’s old high school beau is a washed up has-been with great looking son, his own mini-me, if you like them big and stupid. Every citizen of Temptation is wonderfully crafted to add to the mystery and the hilarity of this tome. And the sex scenes are hot, a little bit raunchy and occasionally a little too realistic because life isn’t always perfect.

Aasne Vigesaa does a wonderful job with the narration. She creates fully-developed characters, each having their own accent, cadence, pitch – it’s really amazing. To be fair (or unfair?) she does not differentiate gender all that much by pitch, so there were a few times I wasn’t clear whether it was Sophie or Phin talking until the dialogue tags. But Zane’s smarminess, Rachel’s age (she gives Rachel uptalk – ending every sentence with a question), Clea’s Marilyn-Monroe-esque charm, all shine through their dialogue. Her delivery is fairly rapid-fire – you have to be paying close attention to follow along; in my case, this was probably the 4th or 5th time I’d listened to it and I had read it in print years ago, so I was never lost except in the wonder of it all. Nothing but good times ahead.

I think this is my favorite quote from this book:

“My God,” she said, as the full meaning of her family’s legend for lying, cheating, and scheming hit her.

She was born to be a politician.

True. To Form. LOL!

Melinda