Where There's Smoke

December 21, 2009
Brown's 16-year-old romance novel delivers a fair amount of heavy-breathing, which might be enough to satisfy her fans in spite of a contrived plot that includes, near the end, an unbelievable action-adventure sequence set in the Caribbean. The heroine is a feisty doctor, Lara Mallory, whose infamous affair with Sen. Clark Tackett aborted his presidential campaign and may have prompted his suicide. Mallory, who has set up her medical practice in the small Texas town run by Tackett's oil-rich family, is vilified by the stern Tackett matriarch, who vows to destroy her, and by the late senator's hell-raising brother, who makes it his business to insult and degrade her. But darn if that old boy don't jus' feel an attraction growin'. Anyone assuming that there is only one basic accent spoken in the Lone Star state will change their mind after sampling reader Ross's variety of voices—from socially prominent grand dames to unassuming oil field workers. Both she and the author are native Texans—and, as is the case with the romantic leads, both are on much firmer ground on their native soil than struggling through a bogus Caribbean battlefield. A Grand Central hardcover.

May 10, 1993
Readers who miss TV's Dallas will love the latest fast-paced romance from the author of the bestselling Mirror Image and French Silk. The Tackett oil clan of Eden Pass in East Texas, dominated by hard-driving widow Jody, managed to weather the sex-scandal disgrace of eldest son, Clark, a congressman, five years ago, and his recent death by drowning. Now Dr. Lara Mallory, the woman involved in Clark's downfall, moves into town to take over the retiring doctor's practice, which Clark bought before his death and willed to her. Lara was widowed after her diplomat husband and young daughter were killed in the Third World country to which they'd been posted in the scandal's wake. She is willing to endure the hatred of the influential Tacketts in order to meet Clark's black-sheep brother Key, whose skill as a pilot she requires in order to return to the country where her daughter's body still lies. Virile Key and gorgeous Lara butt egos while Key's plain sister Janellen finds love with an ex-con, and a cheerleader, daughter of the town slut, seeks romance with a handsome football player. Brown never lets up on melodramatic tension, twisting her plot and subplots until the unsuspected truth about Clark's scandal and death is revealed. 250,00 first printing; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections.