Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Reviews of Flirting with Pete

Flirting with Pete
Flirting with Pete
Author: Barbara Delinsky
PBS Market Price: $8.09 or $4.19+1 credit
ISBN-13: 9780743469845
ISBN-10: 0743469844
Publication Date: 4/2004
Pages: 560
Rating:
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 215

3.8 stars, based on 215 ratings
Publisher: Pocket
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

63 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 31 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 7
Very disturbing plotline. If you are a survivor of molestation by a family memberor are close to someone who is, do not read this book. It's considerably different from Delinsky's other books. Very dark. compelling storyline. I couldn't put it down.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This was only my second Barbara Delinsky book. I was so impressed with the first one that I had to get 2 more off of paperback swap. Flirting with Pete was great. I just loved it. It was almost like 2 stories in one book. It kept me very interested.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 39 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I loved this book. It grabs you from the first page and you don't want to put it down. The plot has a few twists and turns to keep you guessing. Overall, a very enjoyable read.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This is one of my favorite Delinsky books. A young woman inherits a townhouse from a father who never acknowledged her. As she decides what to do with this unexpected gift, she discovers more about herself in his home than she could have ever imagined.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 23 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Loved this book! Great read! I especially loved the psychological aspects of the story. Highly recommended!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 95 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Interesting psychological elements to the plot.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 39 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Great book set in Boston, two stories in one very compelling and well written.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 2 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Great Book
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 136 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Sophisticated and fast moving.
AimeeR avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 46 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is a sweet, sometimes sad book about a mother and daughter, fathers and daughters, broken relationships, a mysterious journal, a hunky gardener, a missing girl who could be dead? an inherited home and lots of suspense.
I cried at the end, but it was brought full circle to tie up all the loose ends. Wonderful read.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on
Helpful Score: 1
Hard to put down!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 51 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
First intro to this author and I will be reading more of her books! Loved this story!
I-no-books avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 93 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
excellent
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 115 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Another excellent book by Barbara Delinksy!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 19 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book was alittle different but kept me reading, hard to put down.
2pooped2party avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 27 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 26 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is a great novel about a Boston psychologist, daughter of a prominent man, who finds a mystery amongst her stranger dad's things when he dies. She fits together the past, falls in love and inherits a cool place! Great book worth reading.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 24 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Received the book from a member and finished it quickly. A great fun read and just what I was in the mood for. A really nice novel.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 57 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
2 stories together, equally interesting.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 265 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A yummy Dlinsky which tells the story of a Pschologist who tries to decipher her deceased father's manuscript, only to discover the possibility that the story may not be fiction. Of course there is a terrific love story for our heroine.
KellyP avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 143 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I simply love Barbara Delinsky books & Flirting With Pete was no exception. Highest recommendations!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 9 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I enjoyed this book very much! another Delinsky winner!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 137 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I had forgotten how much I could enjoy a Barbara Delinsky novel. Though this one started out slowly at first, it quickly developed into a fast read and and happy ending. I enjoy a good love story from time to time, and this one fits the bill. Read it and enjoy!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 51 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I absolutely loved this book!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 176 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Barbara Delinksy always writes about current topics in such a wonderful way. This book made me laugh, cry, be angry--she spins a great tale!
ajsk35 avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 11 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A good book...I've kept it for years and read it twice.
LaurieS avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 504 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Casey Ellis is a young woman whose father, a renowned psychiatrist, never acknowledged her (Casey was the result of a one-night stand). Until his death, that is. Casey's taken off balance when he leaves her a very valuable piece of property and is reluctant to accept anything that was a part of him. Casey is a likable, hard working character whose only living family is her mom who lies in a coma.

When Casey finds a journal among her dad's things with a note that says something along the lines of "must help her - she's kin" she begins to read "Flirting With Pete" hoping that maybe she's found a relative. The journal details the life of an abused young woman named Jenny who Casey is desperate to locate.

The remainder of the book alternates between Jenny's painful story of abuse and Casey's search for the real Jenny and her growing relationship with her gardener who isn't exactly who he appears to be.

The title to this one is deceiving. This is not a light and flirty book but a slower paced, character based drama with a little mystery. It was an involving read with characters who are sympathetically drawn.
bigshirl55 avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 197 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A great book. Very sweet story about learning to love again. Loved it!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 27 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I didn't enjoy this as much as her other books but it is still worth reading.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 15 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I couldn't put this one down. The best I have read from Barbara Delinsky.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 419 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
1st time reading this author. I enjoyed her story and writing style.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 103 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book was really good! It keeps you guessing. I don't want to say what it's about, for fear of giving something away. I really enjoyed it a lot!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Started slow but worth it to keep going.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 46 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A good read. You will really feel for the main character, Casey Ellis, as she gets to know her father much better after his death, and learns a lot about herself as well.
GroovyGlitterGirl avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 45 more book reviews
A page turning look at one young girl's tortured life and the unexpected gifts of a good man comingled with a story of another girl's relationship with a father she never knew. This is a great book!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 80 more book reviews
Liked the Book, good read
genieinabottle avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 37 more book reviews
Great mystery(s)! I wouldn't have read this had I known what it was about beforehand but I got hooked very early on. Alot of different things were going on & I found I just couldn't put it down. Easy to follow sub-plots that leave you with a good feeling for the characters outcomes. This one will stay with me awhile.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 50 more book reviews
Surprisingly a pretty good story with a small mystery, although the ending was a bit too trite...a "let's wrap this up with a good Hollywood ending". The romance stories were good, believable. A nice comfort book.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 9 more book reviews
This book was hard to get into at first, but once I was into it, I was hooked. I couldn't put it down. The suspense was good, but I had it figured out before the "secrets" were revealed. A good read.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on
Loved it! Great characters, good story line, and good twist!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 11 more book reviews
charming novel
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 14 more book reviews
I really liked this book even though it is not of Delinsky's most recent books. The characters were intriguing with a bit of mystery and romance thrown in.
This is a quick read which you will not want to put down.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 91 more book reviews
Great read. Couldn't put it down!!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 377 more book reviews
Casey Ellis has arrived at a lonely place in her life. Her mother remains in a comatose state several years after a terrible accident -- and now her father has died.
Although Casey didn't really know him -- never met him, in fact -- she had held out an oblique hope that someday this man, Dr. Cornelius Unger, a celebrated psychologist, might acknowledge her. In an attempt to please him, she even went into his field and became a counselor, to no avail.
It comes as a shock, therefore, when she learns that he has left her his beautiful townhouse in Boston's exclusive Beacon Hill section. She is of half a mind to sell it and use the money to care for her mother, but then she visits the townhouse and finds it enchanting. In fact, any chance she might have had of resisting the house is lost when she falls in love with the hidden garden out back. Sweetening the deal is the maid, a woman close to her age, who cooks and cleans and wants only to please her; and the gardener, a man who is as enigmatic as he is handsome.
Yet always in Casey's mind is the question of why Cornelius Unger chose to acknowledge her in this way. Sensing that he had an ulterior motive, she searches the house and finds the first part of a manuscript that could be a novel, a journal, or a case study of one of her father's clients. The manuscript tells the harrowing story of a young woman named Jenny who was sexually abused by her father and emotionally abused by her mother. When her mother was murdered, her father was sent to prison. Now, after only six years in jail, he is about to be released, and Jenny knows she has to escape. Her way out appears in the form of a mysterious stranger, a dream of a man named Pete, who shows up on his motorcycle and offers to whisk her away.
Convinced the story is true -- even more, that her father has left this manuscript as a message for her -- Casey sets out to find the rest of the pages. With the discovery of each additional segment, she learns more about Jenny, about herself, and about Cornelius Unger, who she realizes has planned this journey for her, actually begun the first day she set foot in his house. The manuscript proves to be the key to understanding not only her father's past but also that of the man she has come to love.
Flirting with Pete reaches its climax with a startling twist, one that explores the role of imagination in our everyday lives. Through Jenny's story, Casey gains insight into her own life as she vacillates between what she wants to be true and what actually is. With unflinching grace, Barbara Delinsky delves into the human psyche as it colors contemporary family life. Flirting with Pete is sure to touch a personal chord with readers and win her even more dedicated fans
veronicavangoat avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on
This book shifts back and forth between past and present - something that can often be annoying if the author doesn't do well with that kind of writing. Barbara Delinsky apparently can handle it because, if not exactly an on-the-edge-of-your-seat page turner, I was anxious to get back to this book when I had to put it down. I got a little burned out on her books a few years ago, but this made a for a very nice reunion with her style of writing. Interesting characters - it was kind of cool the way she just gave you bits and pieces of each character - it certainly kept me interested. Good read.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 6 more book reviews
Heartbreaking in a most fullfilling way. Great writing and storytelling
Carly avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 6 more book reviews
This book is great! It is a twisted tale ending in a great way. I couldn't put the book down.
Katchie avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 65 more book reviews
This my favorite book in my reading history. I have read other Delinsky books and this one is her best. A girl dealing with the loss of her Mom and trying to figure out who her Dad was(was not raised with him in the home). The other interwoven story of abused girl from the country. All woved a wonderful love story with a hunk thrown in.
Liztonlady avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 48 more book reviews
A Daughter tries to win approval of the father she never knew. Doubleday book
alliepoetesswitch avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 141 more book reviews
I found this book boring compared to her other books which I have read.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 135 more book reviews
Good characters, emotion and intrigue. Excellent read.
kidcrazybarb avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 60 more book reviews
This is a good book!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 16 more book reviews
Casey Ellis gets to know her father only after his deat. While packing away his things, she discovers a manuscript that details the story of Jenny, a woman trying to better herself. Past spills into the future for Casey in this interesting novel.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 52 more book reviews
Narrator Emond effectively performs two intertwining stories in Delinsky's latest. The product of a one-night stand, Casey Ellis has followed her father's career as an acclaimed psychologist from afar, although he has never acknowledged Casey as his daughter. When he dies and leaves his townhouse to Casey, she is stunned. Exploring the rooms, she finds a manuscript about a troubled teen named Jenny, who was physically abused by her mother and sexually abused by her father. The father served a six-year term in prison for murdering the mother, and as the manuscript begins, is about to be released from prison. The terrified Jenny looks to escape with a mysterious stranger named Pete. While Casey looks for clues to Jenny's identity and fate, and how it all ties in with her father, she simultaneously finds romance with Jordan, a gardener who turns out to be an undercover detective also tied in with Jenny. Emond reads in a warm, sympathetic tone, best at voicing Jenny, the vulnerable, anxious teenager. She does not create distinctive character voices, but she does deepen her voice slightly for the male characters and, during conversations, alters her voice enough to alert listeners to which character is speaking.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 134 more book reviews
Delinsky's books are always good!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on
I do not usually read this kind of book but I would have to say that it is the best book so far that I have read!
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 18 more book reviews
Classic Delinsky. Casey Ellis didn't know her father, but inherits his home, maid, and mysterious gardener. While clearing out boxes, she discovers a file. Is it a journal, a case study, or manuscript? While trying to find out more about "Jenny," she discovers more about herself and the dad she didn't know.
Tata avatar reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 135 more book reviews
I have not read this book. In searching my bookcases, I found that I had two of this book.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 533 more book reviews
The product of a one-night stand, Casey Ellis has followed her father's career as an acclaimed psychologist from afar, although he has never acknowledged Casey as his daughter. When he dies and leaves his townhouse to Casey, she is stunned. Exploring the rooms, she finds a manuscript about a troubled teen named Jenny, who was physically abused by her mother and sexually abused by her father. The father served a six-year term in prison for murdering the mother, and as the manuscript begins, is about to be released from prison. The terrified Jenny looks to escape with a mysterious stranger named Pete. While Casey looks for clues to Jenny's identity and fate, and how it all ties in with her father, she simultaneously finds romance with Jordan, a gardener who turns out to be an undercover detective also tied in with Jenny.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 26 more book reviews
Psychologist Casey Ellis never met her father-but that didn't stop her from following in his professional footsteps. Now he has died, and Casey is shocked to have inherited his elegant Boston town house, complete with a maid and a handsome, enigmatic gardner. When she finds a manuscript that could be a novel, a journal, or a case study of one of her father's patients in her new home, she becomes engrossed in the story of Jenny, a young woman trying to escape her troubled life. Convinced the story is true and that her father left it as a message for, Casey digs deeper. As she pieces together the mysteries surrounding her father, Jenny, and the romantic new stranger in her life, she discovers startling links between past and present, and the unexpected ties between what is real and what is imagined.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 42 more book reviews
Casey Ellis's life changes dramatically when the father she never met dies and wills her his Boston townhouse. Determined to discover why her psychologist father left her such a wonderful gift, Casey searches through his papers and uncovers the story of a client named Jenny, a girl who was abused by her parents but who found salvation through the help of a charming stranger named Pete. Will Jenny's story help Casey better understand her father--and her own family's difficult history?
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 471 more book reviews
Psychologist Casey Ellis never met her father-but that didn't stop her from following in his professional footsteps. Now he has died, and Casey is shocked to have inheirited his elegant Boston townhouse, complete with a maid and handsome, enigmatic gardener. When she finds a manuscript that could be a novel, a journal, or a case study of one of her father's patients in her new home, she becomes engrossed in the story of Jenny, a young woman trying to escape her troubled life. Convinced the story is true and that her father left it as a message for her, Casey digs deeper. As she pieces together the mysteries surrounding her father, Jenny, and the romantic new stranger in her life, she discovers startling hints between past and present, and unexpected ties between what is real and what is imagined.
reviewed Flirting with Pete on + 20 more book reviews
Registered at bookcrossing.com