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Love is always an adventure
REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY
Jewelry designer Faith Donovan has little reason to trust any man until Owen Walker saunters into her life. Faith needs his security skills when she takes her jewelry designs to a chi-chi East Coast showing. She doesn't know her older brother Archer wants Owen there to guard her more than her creations. Faith has an abundance of enemies -- the Russian Mafia, the New Jersey Mafia, and even the witchy government operative, April Joy -- all determined to separate Faith from her jewels. The suspense is lightened by the running image of where those jewels are stored. Owen Walker is recovering from injuries and his cane proves handy for fending off the baddies, but he's left to resolve who'll protect Faith from him. The Low Country boy from the bayou discovers his own personal agenda of staying solo is thoroughly destroyed by strong-willed Faith, who demonstrates the Donovan family courage and determination to risk all for love and treasure. Midnight in Ruby Bayou is tempered with heat and passion as fiery as the gems Faith Donovan makes into priceless art. Elizabeth Lowell imbues her story with that same enthralling fire.
By Elizabeth Lowell Avon, $24 ISBN 0380974053
Audio, $35.95
When a proper high-society suffragist is caught with her drawers off, only a man with quick wit and an Irish tongue is her worthy adversarial ally in Betina Krahn's Sweet Talking Man. Frustrated at the ineffective campaign for women's voting rights, Beatrice Von Furstenberg recruits reluctant congressional candidate Connor Sullivan Barrow to her cause. They first meet in a bawdy house frequented by the business and political leaders of New York. Beatrice is determined that Connor will be the tool the suffragists need to gain women's rights. When Connor turns his sweet-talking ways from the voters to the wealthy young widow, Beatrice's life will never be the same. Betina Krahn writes with charm and humor and an uncanny eye for the sensibilities of the day. Sweet Talking Man is a perfect dessert of a book -- tart, tangy, and with just enough froth to be irresistible.
By Betina Krahn Bantam, $6.50 ISBN 0553576194
Trading places Take two popular series romance authors -- one American, one British -- and give them a pair of virile male cousins to write about. Then put each of those cousins in unfamiliar territory in the other's world. That's the adventure of Anne McAllister and Lucy Gordon's zesty Blood Brothers. Cowboy Gabe McBride figures he can blaze into Stanton Abbey, save the local newspaper, and ride back out of town in a couple of days. But he doesn't count on the home fires burning at Freddie the caretaker's B&B. The warm bonds of family that Freddie and her two children offer prove irresistible to the lonesome cowboy. Back at the ranch, Gabe's aristocratic cousin, Lord Randall Stanton, meets cousin Claire. Gabe's foster sister can't believe Lord Randall would love a rough-edged cowgirl, especially when Gabe never noticed her. Coping with unfamiliar responsibilities and terrain, blood brothers Gabe and Randall both learn the lesson that home is where the right woman is. If the romance is right, she'll follow her heart to a world away. Anne McAllister and Lucy Gordon blend their writing and their love stories with seamless magic.
By Anne McAllister and Lucy Gordon Silhouette, $3.99 ISBN 0373763077
Sandy Huseby writes from her homes in Fargo, North Dakota and lakeside near Nevis, Minnesota. She is online at SHuseby@aol.com
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Nobody writes better romantic adventure than Elizabeth Lowell. Her latest tale-spinning takes readers for a slow, sultry ride in Midnight in Ruby Bayou.
The suffragist and the sweet talker