Like many readers out there, when I first read Jesse’s Father back in 1999, I was instantly smitten with C.J. Carmichael. Over the past four years, my appreciation of Ms. Carmichael’s books has increased thanks to her ability to create truly captivating romances for the Superromance line. Ms. Carmichael has outdone herself and charmed my socks off with another guaranteed page turner in Deal of a Lifetime.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?

Young and secretly in love with her boss, Stacey Prentice was the best executive assistant Chance Maguire could have asked for. Until the day Chance’s ex-wife came back into the picture and lured Chance away. Now hurt and more than a little insulted because Chance married someone else after all the years she spent jumping to his every beck and call waiting for him to notice her, Stacey has decided to get even. And the best way to do that is by selling him out to the competition.

Businessman and owner of Quintessential Technologies, Quinn Huntington didn’t know what to think when one of Maguire’s key employees contacted him offering him the deal of a lifetime. The one thing he did know was that with Chance on his honeymoon he had to get to her and find out what she wanted before she sold Chance out. Luckily, she didn’t seem to realize that Chance was one of his best friends.

Assigned to investigate possible leaks at Maguire Manufacturing and hoping to catch whoever was responsible, Meredith Hayden put taps on all the phone lines going in and out of the company. Meredith was shocked to learn that the person responsible was Maguire’s right hand. The shock didn’t last long when she realized she was going to have to act fast if she wanted to make sure that Stacey wouldn’t get the chance to sell Chance out.

Getting Stacey out of town was the easy part. Posing as Stacey in order to see how much information she had leaked to Quinn was going to be the hard part, especially when he insisted on her accompanying him to an out of town business meeting. But if she thought that was hard, it was nothing compared to what it was going to be for her to not fall in love with him when nothing more than a hotel room wall separates them.

Telling herself not to fall in love with Quinn was easier said than done and now that Meredith has started realizing how wrong she was about him, it’s become impossible. But has Meredith given into the inevitable and fallen in love only to end up losing him when he finds out she lied about everything?

Ms. Carmichael is an author who has the ability to take a theme and run with it, infusing it with a fresh writing style that is all her own. She writes powerful storylines that touch every reader's heart, thanks to the emotional depth, rich characterizations, complex plots and appealing characters they all contain.

Deal of a Lifetime overflows with unforgettable characters, both primary and secondary, that melt your heart. I also liked that the sparks fly between Quinn and Meredith despite the fact that they don't want to like each other because they mistakenly believe the other has a less than stellar character. This only proves the point that you can’t choose whom your heart falls in love with, but if you are smart enough to listen to it, you just might find the greatest happiness you could ever know. Readers won't be able to help falling for Quinn or plotting out ways to nab him for their very own.

So, if you’re looking for a truly memorable read as you watch the leaves beginning to fall from the trees on these early days of Fall, then Deal of a Lifetime is the one you need to settle back with. You really can’t go wrong when you read a book by C.J. Carmichael.