Hester Hastings, a dialect coach to the rich and famous, gets paid to help Hollywood actors speak correctly in their roles. Although Hester is very successful in her career, the same cannot be said of her life, especially her love life. Her life revolves around her work and her last relationship was eighteen months ago, with widower Philip Brewer. When Hester would not marry him, he cheated on her. Yet although heartbroken, Hester still keeps in touch with him for the sake of his daughter Jessica, who looks upon her as a mother figure. Although Hester tries to maintain a cordial friendship with Philip, he uses Jessica as a pawn to try and win Hester back. It is on the way to collect Jessica that this story starts. Hester takes her friend Goldie, a professional image consultant along, in order to act as a chaperone. Goldie berates Hester for allowing Philip to manipulate her because of her love for Jessica. They consider types of men like Philip who “on the surface are devastatingly polite and well-bred and then stab you in the back”. They both decide that they prefer a man who is “rough around the edges with a heart of gold”. Passing a Los Angeles jail, they muse about how if they “polished” up these inmates, their entire lives could change. This impetus of this statement leads to a bizarre wager where they bet each other that they can transform an ex-con and pass him off as a prince in three months. Enzo, just released from jail, accepts their proposition and moves in with Hester so she can improve him so that he can do better in society. In working together and living together, they become drawn to each other. But Enzo has a past. Can Hester overlook this to have a future with Enzo or will his past actions ruin their newfound love? This was a really thought-provoking book. It was by turns a love story but also a book which dealt with the theme of second chances: of believing in people despite what they have done in the past. The author cleverly structured the narrative to interchange between the characters so that the reader could see the story from each point of view. I especially loved the way that she gradually refined the language of Enzo. At first he speaks in “gangsta” street talk but as the story progresses and he becomes more educated, he becomes much more eloquent. Reminding me of both Educating Rita and Pygmalion, this was a lovely, well-written story, with really likeable characters that you will root for. (LP)
