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The miracle of modern love
REVIEWS BY BARBARA SAMUEL
By Hailey North Avon, $5.99 384 pages ISBN 9780060582470
If dead bodies are your pleasure, there are two gritty and intensely romantic thrillers are out this month. The first is Cut Throat, by Sharon Sala, which centers on the fierce and aloof Cat Dupree. Cat is a woman with a mission—to find and kill her father's murderer, a man who left Cat with a slit throat and a legacy of vengeance. Though she thought she killed the tattooed monster, bounty hunter Cat suddenly realizes he's still alive and on the loose in Mexico. Knowing she will never rest as long as he lives, Cat sets out to track him down, leaving behind her sometime lover Wilson McKay, who has discovered he loves the troubled woman. New York Times best-selling author Sala (aka Dinah McCall) has won legions of fans by delving deeply into the heart of her often tortured characters to deliver intense tales of redemption. Cut Throat offers insight into the dynamics of loss and recovery as Cat makes her way from the dark of revenge into the light of possibility, encountering scorpions and dead bodies and a monster along the way. Elegant, compassionate glimpses of Mexican characters add a supple richness to this wildly romantic story.
By Sharon Sala MIRA, $7.99 352 pages ISBN 9780778325079
By Tara Janzen Dell, $6.99 432 pages ISBN 9780440243847
This reader bears swooning weakness for stories of mistaken identity, and Julia London has written a beauty in The Dangers of Deceiving a Viscount, the third in The Desperate Debutantes series about three orphaned sisters trying to make their way in Regency England. Lady Phoebe Fairchild, who is playing the role of the mythical Madame Dupree, modiste extraordinaire, has been cornered into making gowns for the hellion sisters of the long-absent viscount William Darby—the juiciest catch of the season. Phoebe would love to disagree, but the man is simply devastating, and almost from the first moment, a shimmering connection blooms between them. But Will thinks Phoebe is just a seamstress, and the viscount must find a wife among the nobility, so of course their love is doomed. Especially when Will finds out that Phoebe has lied to him. London is a terrific writer with a good ear for dialogue and an exquisite period sensibility, and Will is an especially winning hero, a man of honor and education who is worthy of the heroine who loves him. Yum.
By Julia London Pocket, $6.99 384 pages ISBN 9781416516170 Barbara Samuel's next novel will be out from Bantam in 2008. Read her opinions on travel and books at awriterafoot.com.
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Hailey North's Not the Marrying Kind is that rarest of delights—a straight contemporary romance. No dead bodies, no dripping fangs, no neckcloths or horses or ghosts. This is a romance novel, with all the delicious complexities and delights that entails. When Harriet Smith (poor girl—with a name like that, what could she be but the class nerd?) was in high school, she loved Jake Porter from afar. He was everything she could never have, and she was everything he'd never notice. But the stars aligned and the two had one night together, long ago. Since then, Jake has become a driven music executive and Harriet has made her way to New York City to become a world-famous artist—along with the gay best friend she married to give her son a name. Of course it's Jake's son, and of course the two will come together again—at Christmas, in small-town Arkansas—but North knows the truth at the heart of a romance is that we only care when it is two very particular, very individual humans falling in love, and it is the subtly layered characters and clever touches that make this tale so engaging.
Kiss me deadly
Next up is the hip and sexy On the Loose, by Tara Janzen, author of the enormously popular Crazy series (Crazy Hot, Crazy Love). Special agent C. Smith Rydell stays alive by playing it cool in the cocaine- and guerrilla-infested jungles of Central America. Enter Honey York, a leggy socialite on a mission to get money for her sister the nun. Four months ago, Smith and Honey shared one passionate night, a night that meant more to each of them than either is willing to admit. Now, Smith is assigned to get Honey into the guerrilla camp, make a drop and get back in 48 hours, without getting killed or falling in love. It's dicey on both counts, which makes for a galloping, one-sitting read.
A dangerous deception