Does she or doesn't she? Book

The latest book I've read with a soap opera theme is "Does she or doesn't she?" by Alisa Kwitney. This novel came out in 2003 and is written by someone who never worked in soaps. She does credit soap writer Stephanie Braxton, for teaching her about the genre. Below is a summary with spoilers and some thoughts on this book.

The main character in this book is named Delilah Levine, she's married, but kept her maiden name. Delilah is an aspiring soap opera writer who is on a test contract with a program called "Secrets!". Delilah is married to a man named Jason Green and they have a daughter named Sadie. Delilah is home alone every day as her daughter is at school, and her husband is at work. A man named Ford, who is a plumber (though it is an FBI cover) spends a lot of time in their apartment trying to fix a closet, but is seemingly unsuccessful. Delilah has pages during each chapter where she fantasizes about Ford.

This is an interesting piece of chick lit and not what I expected. Delilah was right suspecting Ford and her fantasies weren't completely out of nowhere. Delilah was a poor script writer, as she actually was a poet and proofreader kind of person. She accidentally printed out her story pages, on her husband's top secret documents. The head writer at the soap opera, reading about the top secret business plans thought that was her story. Delilah then was hired full-time as a breakdown writer after submitting a full story arc based upon the secret business. Jason's company was developing something called Biosensual that is a huge aphrodisiac, which if used in too high doses could kill a person, and in some applications could change the color of a man's private parts. This was after All My Children did the libidizone story, but it sounded like something in that realm. This drug of course causes people to do things that they may not normally do just like it did on AMC.

Of course reading this book, and seeing that Delilah was trying out to write for a NYC based soap had me think how this story couldn't be written today. The story ends abruptly and it is uncertain what Delilah will do next with her life as now she may have no man in her life. Regardless of the end, the story was amusing and sometimes it is nice to see a chick lit book end with the female character choosing to be alone instead of deciding to settle and stay in a bad relationship.