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We first
meet beautiful Angel Marie Sutter of Deadwater, Nevada
in 1847. When she wasn’t
serving the bordello patrons of the Sweet Magnolia and doing her
chores, Angel
spent her time fending off the advances of the local Deputy Sheriff and
dreaming of learning how to play the piano. Life hasn’t been good to
her and
she finds herself alone and ill suited to any occupation besides the
oldest one
– gratifying men for profit. Still, she holds hope in her heart that
one day a
man will show her as much love as the performer Billy Joel has written
into his
songs. It is during a piano lesson while Angel is recalling the
heartfelt
singing of a friend that everything changes for her. One minute she’s
sitting
at her piano in the Sweet Magnolia and the next she’s at a Billy Joel
concert.
Shado
Jackson doesn’t expect anything good during his Christmas Eve stakeout
of the
Imperial Hotel. He’s bitter, lonely and jaded since the murder of his
brother
years before. Christmas Eve is just another day to him and standing in
the cold
outside of the run-down bordello, he is unsurprised to see yet another
hooker
walking his way. The lovely blonde does manage to surprise him when she
doesn’t
know her way around and walks into the path of a speeding automobile.
Minutes
later he finds himself with the appropriately named Angel in his arms again
after an attack by a killer.
The
question of what could happen if a harlot from the 1800’s turned up in
the
middle of a present day drug bust is answered neatly in Ms. McIntyre’s
entertaining tale. There’s plenty of steam in this story, and the
author didn’t
spare our emotions either. She brings together two world-weary and
scarred
survivors and gives her readers plenty to think about. While this book
follows Wild
& Unruly and the reader will find references to those
characters, it
stands alone.
Reviewed by
Joyce Wolters for The Road to Romance
January 18,
2005
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