Pamela Morsi’s The Bikini Car Wash delivers a winner in a thoroughly engaging story about going against the status quo and finding romance and love along the way.

When Andi Wolkowicz’s mother dies, she moves back to her hometown to help her father care for her developmentally challenged identical twin sister, Jelly. Unfortunately for Andi, a recession could not have been a worse time to leave her lucrative job in Chicago to come back to Plainville, Texas to look for work. With no jobs available, Andi decides to open her father’s boarded up car wash but this time with a gimmick—bikini-clad women will be the ones washing the cars.

Half the town is up in arms but Andi finds support in the form of her high school crush, Pete Guthrie, who owns the struggling grocery store next door. However, Pete is the only Guthrie on her side because Pete’s father will use his weight and might as the city’s alderman to make sure that The Bikini Car Wash is shut down for good.

I really enjoyed reading this story. Andi is a wonderful heroine. She’s intelligent, beautiful and has a huge heart. She also won’t back down from a fight and allow herself to be bullied. She’s more than aware that the car wash will be controversial, but when the city council won’t permit her to open a drive-thru coffee shop on the car wash property, she does what she has to do to revive the car wash and make it work. Scantily clad women washing cars works!

Pete is a great guy. Yes, perhaps at the very beginning when I read that he and his buddies used to call Andi and her sister ‘the retard twins’ I wasn’t sure if and how much I would like him. But that was a minor bleep on his likeability radar. Pete is wonderful, the antithesis of his father, who isn’t at all supportive of anything Pete does and cheated on Pete’s mom their entire marriage. I also disliked the father because he heads the opposition to shut down The Bikini Car Wash.

Andi and Pete’s romance is very gradual and sudden all at the same time. It starts out with a kiss and quickly moves to lovemaking that same day, but then doesn’t move much further after that. Pete wants it to go somewhere and Andi doesn’t. While Pete’s not a pushy kind of guy, he doesn’t let up. If she won’t sleep with him again, then he can be her ‘chauffeur’ and bring her and the gals at the car wash sandwiches from his store. And it’s that unwavering friendship—and the fact that he’s not hard on the eyes—that does Andi in. :)

Andi’s father, Walt, also has his own story line and romance that just made my heart swell. Sometimes—okay maybe too many times—I find characters with parallel story lines distracting. Here Ms. Morsi shows her skill as a storyteller as she weaves Walt’s romance into the book and keeps you engaged and invested in the outcome.

I especially enjoyed the way Ms. Morsi portrays Jelly, Andi’s developmentally challenged twin and another character who has Down syndrome. The way both characters behaved rang so true to form it made me smile. I loved that Jelly is a Law and Order oficionado and is always spouting off something about the law and the show. She also does a great job with Tiff and Cheryl (the other two car washers) by giving us a glimpse into their personal lives, their struggles, and making them three-dimensional rather than just support props for Andi.

The Bikini Car Wash is a ‘sweet’ romance and the door is firmly closed when it comes to the love scenes. Perhaps that’s why I’m so surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how quickly I read it. For me, someone who enjoys my romances with the door thrown wide open, this was a nice departure and a testament to Ms. Morsi’s talent that she kept me engaged and turning the pages to the very end. ~ Beverley