Notorious

June 13, 2011
Veteran Regency author Cornick (Lord of Scandal) introduces an original twist to a tale that's long on passion and short on logic. Sir James Devlin may have come into a title, but he's in urgent need of money. Putting aside his scruples, he enters into a lucrative engagement with an immature young woman, while his sister, Francesca, falls in love with wealthy scoundrel Fitzwilliam Alton. At a ball, James is shocked to encounter Susanna Burney, his onetime wife, who abandoned him the day after their wedding for reasons that never really make sense. Susanna is now intent on seducing Alton, but not for love: she's a professional heartbreaker, hired by Alton's parents to end what they consider an unsuitable romance with penniless, ill-bred Francesca. Soon James and Susanna reconnect with delicious lust that somewhat masks the absurdity of their backstory.

April 29, 1996
Some formulas never go out of style, and the prolific Dailey (Legacies, 1995) always mixes the ingredients well. As she has done some 90 times previously, first in Harlequin romances and later in hardcover (here for the first time for HarperCollins), Dailey arranges for a tough-minded heroine to meet a strong alpha male. A broken-down pickup truck strands Kincade (a nod to the hero of The Bridges of Madison County?) Harris, a washed-up rodeo rider, in the small town of Friendly, Nev. Almost immediately, he rescues pretty Eden Rossiter, owner of the Spur Ranch, from a stampeding herd of cattle. Sparks fly, and she hires Kincade as a ranch hand. But Eden is skittish when it comes to men: about 10 years ago, she was acquitted of killing Jeff DePard during an attempted rape. Now Jeff's brother is determined to drive Spur Ranch out of business; he's abetted by Eden's own brother, whose gambling addiction makes him DePard's pawn. Steering clear of vapid introspection and dialogue, the novel succeeds on the strength of Dailey's well-paced plot and emotion-packed ending. $250,000 ad/promo; Doubleday Book Club main selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection; author tour; U.K., translation, dramatic rights: Richard Curtis.