Escapes into romantic worlds

REVIEWS BY BARBARA SAMUEL

Playing with time, playing with genre expectations, pushing into new worlds—this month's offerings are all a little bit different. Let's plunge into the fun to break up the dog days of summer.

Best-selling author Christina Dodd begins a new series of contemporary novels with Trouble in High Heels, a dishy, fast-paced suspense novel with a winking sense of delight. Brandi Michaels, daughter to the man-pleasing beauty Tiffany, has vowed to create a sensible, orderly life for herself. But when she's suddenly jilted by her fiancé, the busty blonde beauty pulls out the stops for one night of no-strings-attached hot sex with Roberto, a juicy Italian count (who just might be a jewel thief). When she arrives back home to find her apartment ransacked, her life in the sights of an unknown killer, she has no choice but to turn to Roberto for help—even if it means her whole life falls apart. Dodd has created a fast, very sexy modern adventure.


Having it all

Chick-lit favorite Sarah Mlynowski plays with time in Me vs. Me. When her boyfriend proposes on the eve of her departure to New York City, Gabby Wolf finds herself in a classic and familiar dilemma—does she take the job of her dreams in the city of her dreams, or stay with the man of her dreams in a town that doesn't offer her much? At a critical moment, she makes a wish to have both—and that's exactly what she gets. One morning she awakens in New York City, in her new apartment, with her great job as a producer for a successful news show. The next day, she awakens back in Phoenix with now-fiancé Cam, planning her wedding. The next morning, she's back in New York. Now Gabby has even more of a dilemma—because both lives have pros and cons. If she gives up Cam, will she miss out on love forever? But if she gives up the job, can she ever really be happy? Me vs. Me is a charming story with lots of insight into the challenges of making a life that means something.


Southern secrets

Virginia Kantra is well known to readers of her highly acclaimed Intimate Moments novels. Home Before Midnight, which follows the 2006 RITA award finalist Close Up, illustrates exactly why she's such a reader favorite. Bailey Wells has a not-very-well-hidden crush on her employer, married true-crime writer Paul Ellis. When his wife, a Southern socialite known to drink a bit too much, is found dead in her swimming pool, Bailey can't avoid the suspicion of police detective Steve Burke, who has a broken heart he can't quite mend, nor can she avoid being drawn to the handsome officer. As the pair fights their growing attraction, it becomes plain the investigation is stirring up dangerous secrets that someone is willing to kill to protect. Kantra is a sensitive writer with a warm sense of humor, a fine sense of sexual tension and an unerring sense of place.


Highland gothic

My favorite book this month took me by surprise. At first glance, it didn't appear to be anything particularly different—a Highland tale, involving time travel, of which we've all seen more than one. The cover is ordinary, the name of the writer unfamiliar. And yet. . . . I picked up Return of the Highlander by Sara Mackenzie at the end of a long trip, with a very bad cold and a need to escape for an evening—and boy, did I ever! Bella Ryan is a writer renting a cottage in the Scottish Highlands in order to research The Black MacLean, a fierce clan leader killed just after Culloden. MacLean himself is awakened by supernatural forces and given a second chance to heal a great wrong. He's a ghostly figure only Bella can see, but he grows more solid as he learns to be compassionate and take on the evil he and Bella must vanquish. I slipped into the story on the first page, seduced by clean and simple language, a compelling hero and a genuinely likable heroine. Billed as a dark gothic, the book offers magic, drama and redemption, but there is also a lot of heart. Enjoy!


Barbara Samuel's latest book is Madame Mirabou's School of Love.

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