Life hasn't been easy for 23-year-old, proud Puerto Rican Angel Gomez. She is a hardworking and financially strapped single mother to seven-year-old, asthmatic Jose. By day, Angel is a nursing student, fending off the advances of her demeaning, sexually harassing superior, Dr. Collins. By night, she is a "mixologist" at a swanky club run by a racist male boss.
When Jose suffers a sudden and acute asthma attack and is rushed in for medical treatment, Angel and Jose cross paths with a friendly and handsome African American stranger in the waiting room. Unbeknownst to them, the patient is Caleb "the Duke" Lewis, a star pitcher for the New York Yankees. He's also a notorious partyer and ladies' man with a past. Why is the superstar being treated at a "crappy" medical clinic in the Bronx and not at a state-of-the-art hospital?
When the Duke's identity is revealed and it is discovered that he's trying to keep an unhealed ankle injury--sustained from a stray gunshot when his friend was killed--hush-hush from the ball club and the media, Angel gets roped into posing as his girlfriend, his alibi for being at the clinic. This arrangement paves the way for a feisty romance challenged by class differences, old wounds, rivalries and power plays.
With The Perfect Date, television personality and model Evelyn Lozada (with Holly Lorincz) has written a lively debut populated with diverse characters and contemporary conflicts that blends elements of mystery and suspense into a larger romance plot. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines