cover image Cyber Cinderella

Cyber Cinderella

Christina Hopkinson, . . Warner/5 Spot, $12.95 (271pp) ISBN 978-0-446-69716-3

Thirty-year-old Londoner Izobel Brannigan is uninspired by both her middling job at public relations firm PR O'create and her snoozer of a boyfriend, George, but things take a turn for the mysterious when she Googles herself and finds someone has set up a Web site under izobelbrannigan.com. Initially, the site is blank, but it is soon filled with bio clips, recent photographs and glowing testimonials, but nothing that reveals its creator's identity. Izobel and a girlfriend theorize the "stalkie" culprit may be a former boyfriend, but neither woman has the technological expertise to investigate this premise. Enter PR O'create's IT consultant, Ivan Jaffy, who works the tech front while Izobel questions—to no avail—her likeliest exes about their possible involvement. As Ivan teaches Izobel about HTML coding, she discovers he has a seductive artistic side hidden behind his geekery. But could he, with his Web-savvy, be the flattering cyber-stalker? Though Hopkinson's novel is charmingly British ("those spods and boffins had made a mint"), the dilemmas Izobel faces in this techie romp are universal and will certainly resonate with U.S. readers. (Aug. 21)