Second Acts

Cynthia Amas has her hands full. In the middle of launching a boutique matchmaking service amid the sun, surf, and celebrities of Southern California, her own romantic life gets a whole lot more complicated...and steamy. While expertly juggling the needs of her exclusive clients, her own maddeningly irresistible bad-boy, sometime lover unexpectedly returns for a hot and heavy reunion. Meanwhile, her high-maintenance mother busily concocts harebrained schemes for meddling in Cynthia's affairs. And her new best girlfriend, the sexy proprietress of a chic Beverly Hills dog-grooming salon, just happens to roll with a purebred entourage of curiously gifted canines. Before long, Cynthia's personal, professional, and amorous lives begin crashing hilariously into one another. Join Cynthia as she begins "Second Acts" and find out who accidentally slips into bed with whom, who has a penchant for low-cut lederhosen, and who winds up naked and alone on a beautiful beach in Malibu!

As her Second Acts Dating Service truly takes off, Cynthia Amas discovers that in the heady world of high-end Hollywood romance, with success comes complexity. In this wildly seductive romp through the lush canyons and lavish neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the line between business and pleasure quickly blurs in a dizzying rush of sex and celebrity. Just as our heroine's uncanny genius for matching up her growing roster of exclusive love seekers continues to deepen, her own love life reaches a fever pitch. Things get complicated. And funny. And excruciatingly sensual. Cynthia's high-maintenance lovelorn mother, her maddeningly hot ex-fling Max, a long-lost high school crush, and of course her best friend, the libidinous, star-crazed Lolita and her mysterious pack of telepathic canines, are all along for the ride. Not to mention one very rich, very famous film producer. On top of everything else, her newest, most important client is literally the biggest movie star in the world. In more ways than one. When it comes to extra curriculars, he is the hardest-working stud in show business. Try as Cynthia may to hook him up with any number of gorgeous ladies in waiting, his notoriously one-track mind is set on her. She's determined to steer the dating service to the next level, but it's hard to focus, let alone keep your hands on the wheel, when you're hot, bothered, and nearly driven to distraction along the steamy highways and byways of love and lust. What a way to make a living.

Hearts Unleashed is Julia Dumont's third novel in the Second Acts contemporary romance series. Cynthia Amas, matchmaking guru to everyone but herself, has just opened the new offices of her highly personalized boutique dating service in Hollywood, California. One of her new clients -- a gorgeous, well-connected, uber-rich widow -- comes in search of a new lease on life in the form of no less than a social and sexual reawakening. The story moves across the endlessly entertaining landscape of Los Angeles --from an astonishingly erotic art exhibit to a decidedly intoxicating voyage with a wildly attractive crew of love and lust seekers via a luxury yacht up the Southern California coast. Colorful supporting characters in this sensuous and deliciously convoluted farce include Cynthia's best friend Lolita and her ever-mystifying pack of talented dogs; Paloma, Cynthia's beautiful young assistant; a passionate new import from Dublin named Seamus O'Brien; baddest-of-bad-boy ex-lovers Max; and superstar screen idol Jack Stone...all seemingly hell-bent on complicating the matters of the heart beyond belief. Meanwhile, Cynthia's lovably eccentric mother has run off to Italy with one of the biggest philanderers in Hollywood. Throughout it all, Cynthia attempts to maintain a long distance affair with her own possible once-in-a-lifetime true love match, but as she encounters the sensual on-the-job temptations of a life in the romance business, it all seems to be slipping through her fingers. Love and lust stir up jealousies and romantic entanglements that come to a passionate and hilarious climax, leaving the reader breathless from laughter and pretty much every other emotion.