Sugar Daddy

Jeannie Stith's experience shines as she narrates this contemporary romance. Stith introduces listeners to Liberty Jones, whose voice resonates with effervescence, despite her difficult life. Her childhood love, Hardy Cates, has a sweet Texas twang that endears him to listeners. Liberty's employer, a wealthy Texan, has a weathered voice that rings true with the wisdom of his age and experience. Liberty is forced to choose between the son of her employer, Gage, whose sensual voice lures her, and Hardy, whose voice has filled her childhood dreams. Stith's storytelling skills are most evident in her portrayal of Liberty, whose perseverance will appeal to listeners of all ages. S.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

September 25, 2006
Mass market bestseller Kleypas makes her hardcover debut with this entertaining chronicle of Liberty Jones's rise from the trailer park to life in a Texas mansion. The daughter of a Hispanic father (who dies during Liberty's childhood) and a white mother, Liberty pines for the hunky bad boy Hardy Cates while mom Diana has another daughter, Carrington, and scores the occasional windfall to keep the famil afloat. After Diana is killed in a traffic accident, Liberty raises Carrington, gets a beauty school scholarship and lands a gig at an exclusive Houston salon. There she meets investment mogul Churchill Travis, who takes a paternal shine to her. A horse-riding accident puts Churchill in a wheelchair, and he hires Liberty to be his personal assistant, with the catch that both sisters have to live with him. Churchill's oldest son, Gage, immediately distrusts Liberty, and their vicious bickering, as romance readers know, can lead to only one thing. Things get messy once Hardy, now rich, reappears and a Travis family secret is revealed. Though Liberty's plight and redemption are straight out of the soaps and the prose has its trite moments, Kleypas's many readers will root for Liberty, a fiery and likable underdog.