After the Night

December 4, 1995
Flawed and predictable, Howard's latest offering after Dream Man is the rather cliched contemporary story of a dirt-poor Southern girl in love with the handsome son of a Louisiana town's wealthiest family. Loving Rouillard men seems to run in the Devlin family. Twelve years ago, Renee Devlin and Guy Rouillard disappeared simultaneously one summer night. The entire town assumed the longtime lovers had eloped, and Guy's handsome young son, Gray, enraged, had the remaining Devlins driven out of town, leaving 14-year-old Faith to care for her fatally ill baby brother. Now Faith is back, financially independent and still nursing a passion for Gray that his actions couldn't possibly justify. But she's also ready to even the score--especially when she learns that the elder Rouillard may have been murdered that fateful summer night. Faith is not as sympathetic as Howard's previous heroines, and Gray goes a half-step beyond the acceptable bad-boy hero. Howard does manage to offset these problems with provocative secondary characters and borderline erotica, creating a sexy speed read.