ecember 29, 2009, was the Semi-Official Something-Annual “Buy a Book Written by Victoria Dahl” Day! You were supposed to buy Lead Me On.

Lead Me On is the final book in Victoria Dahl’s series set in the small town of Tumble Creek, Colorado, and since Victoria Dahl likes surprising her readers, Lead Me On is not set in Tumble Creek, Colorado, but it is set in Aspen, a resort town near Tumble Creek. Jane Morgan (not her birth name) has worked very, very hard to prove that she is prim, proper, and untouchable—the perfect, consummate secretary. But deep down, she fears that she’s never going to be able to eradicate her past. When the book starts, however, Jane discovers that her past is coming to get her. That threat takes two forms.

First, there’s Chase. Hot, sexy, tattooed; he likes blowing things up, and so he has a business wherein he blows things up. Like, holy cow. Can you get any hotter than that? Yes, yes you can. Because Chase also takes one look at the perfect, buttoned-up Jane Morgan, and instantly starts wondering what it would be like to undo all those buttons. To Jane’s chagrin, she discovers that she wants him to undo those buttons. She wants to let loose.

Now, you might think that this is a story you’ve read a thousand times. Proper girl; guy who teaches her to have fun. Isn’t that the plot of a thousand romance novels out there? Well, no. I wish I could tell you everything, but trust me, you will want to find out for yourself. Jane isn’t your every-day average prim girl who has never let her hair down. Nope; her hair is pulled back tightly for a reason, a damned good reason, a reason that when you find out about it is almost heart-breaking.

You still see pieces of that reason from the beginning of the book, though. Jane’s mother is embarrassing in all the wrong ways—she was a serial dater of men in prison. And her brother gets picked up by the law for stealing, and soon finds himself charged with murder. This is the second way that Jane must learn to face her past. She has to learn to deal with the problems her family has created. And this, I think, is the real genius of Lead Me On: The past winds around the present, in an intricate and heart-stopping pattern. This is a book with a tortured heroine—but not one who sat and cried about her lot in life. Instead, she had an excruciatingly hard time, and she stepped up to the plate and she conquered everything. Jane Morgan is a huge winner, and this book demonstrates that in spades.

This is also a book with two heroes. No, I don’t mean it that way! Victoria Dahl writes sexy, but she doesn’t write it that out there. No; Chase is 100% the hero of the present-day version of this book. But the past-Jane had a hero, too... her step-father, Mac. And let me assure you, when the past unwinds Jane’s life, you’ll see it too.

This book made me cry. I’ve loved all of Victoria Dahl’s contemporaries, but from the careful intricacy of the plotting, to the strong, yet wounded heroine, to the strength of the secondary characters, this is by far her best yet.

So what are you waiting for? Pick up a copy of Lead Me On today!

Want to see Courtney’s other recommendations? Click here.