Perfect by Judith McNaught

Hero: Zack Benedict
Heroine: Julie Mathison
Grade: A

A rootless foster child, Julie Mathison had blossomed under the love showered upon her by her adoptive family. Now a lovely and vivacious young woman, she was a respected teacher in her small Texas town, and she passionately lived her ideals. Julie was determined to give back all the kindness she'd received; nothing and no one would ever shatter the perfect life she had fashioned.

Zachary Benedict was an actor/director whose Academy Award-winning career had been shattered when he was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. After the tall, ruggedly handsome Zack escaped from a Texas prison, he abducted Julie and forced her to drive him to his Colorado mountain hideout. She was outraged, cautious, and unable to ignore the instincts that whispered of his innocence. He was cynical, wary, and increasingly attracted to her. Passion was about to capture them both in its fierce embrace...but the journey to trust, true commitment, and proving Zack's innocence was just beginning....

This is most definitely one of my favorite Judith McNaught's.

If you think about it, there's so many things to love about this book.

The Hero: Zack Benedict.

He came from a rich background, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the world at his feet and then his parents died before he was legal and left him in the care of his grandmother who immediately disowned him, taking whatever money was his in the meantime, leaving him all on his own without a dime to his name and making sure he knew just how much she loathed him.

He heads west and gets picked up as a grip on a movie in Hollywood. His pretty face and sexy body lands him a movie deal and suddenly he's thrown into the Hollywood scene with everyone wanting a piece of Zack Benedict. Little boys want to be him when they grow up and little girls want to lose their virginity to him and have his babies...yeah he's THAT hot.

You see, he makes it really big and gets to be an uber millionaire without the help of his stuffy old money Grandma. In fact, because he was booted from the family tree, it drove him to make something of himself and shove it to his family, because when his parents died, he not only lost his parents, but he lost his entire family. He had a sister and a brother who were younger than he was and were not kicked out, they were not to contact nor have any contact with Zack if they wanted to continue to live in the big money life they were used to and because they were selfish and spoiled, they did as their Grandmother instructed them.

So Zack was completely and utterly alone. Did he cry like a baby at the injustice of it all? Oh no, he moved on. He became a cold and unfeeling bastard, but hey he was still hot. He married another fellow beautiful actress who cheated on him with one of her co stars and she ends up dead on the set of a movie that Zack is directing.

Of course, Zack is blamed for the entire thing because the story of how she was unfaithful to him comes out and he goes to prison for a murder he didn't commit. He becomes even more unattached from the world and his cynical nature is taken up a notch, he becomes an even BIGGER bastard.

...and then he met Julie Mathison.

And she turns his world around, gives him hope of a better life and makes him into the man we fall in love with at the end of the book.

You have to read the book to really get a feel of just what an awesome hero Zack is, but trust me...he's one of the best.

The "Drowning" Scene.

Because he takes Julie hostage, it's only obvious that she would try to escape from him and when Zack realizes that Julie is gone and that she might have drowned in the lake, when he goes in to save her?

*sigh*

The bomb. Read it, you'll love it.

The Letter.

Never in my life have I read a letter that made me cry as much as this letter did. Zack is seriously one hella great hero and the love he writes about in this book totally melts my heart every time. I'm telling you, read the book, you'll love it.

The Setting.

Most of the book is set in the Colorado Mountains where the air is crisp and clean, the weather a bit chilled but perfect for a snow day. Perfect for hot chocolate and getting to "know" your partner. It's the perfect setting for a romance novel, because the atmosphere is just so beautiful and JM does a fantastic job of taking us on a journey all the way to beautiful Colorado, you can totally feel like you're there.

Okay, I can go on and on about how much I love this book and what I loved about it, but you guys are seriously going to have to read it for yourself. This book is just all out FABULOUS. Zack and Julie's story, the way it's told and the things they both go through to get to the end is just one of the best stories you'll read about in a very long time.

This book is swoonworthy good, for real.