Private Entrance [Paperback]

Kathryn Harvey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2007

Abby Tyler is a woman on a mission. For more than thirty years, Abby has been desperately searching for her child—an infant stolen at birth before she even had a chance to see it. To locate her child and end years of heartache, Abby formulates a plan that will bring her face to face with a past she has tried to forget.

Elsewhere, three strangers receive word that they’ve each won a contest that, oddly, they don’t recall entering. None of them are prepared for the luxurious and erotic prize that awaits them—a week at The Grove. This exclusive anything-goes, no-questions-asked resort in the Southern California desert is an oasis so remote, that the only way in or out is by airplane. Amid the glamour of movie stars and the super-rich, the three strangers—Coco, Sissy, and Ophelia—find themselves embroiled in a baffling mystery involving the reclusive spa owner, Abby Tyler.

As a deadly sandstorm approaches the resort, a murderer stalks the trapped guests. Someone will die, someone will find love, and all three women will come to astonishing realizations about themselves. From the sensual heat of the desert to the corrupt underworld of Las Vegas, author Kathryn Harvey delivers a stimulating tale with Private Entrance.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kathryn Harvey, author of the wildly successful novels Butterfly and Stars, is the pseudonym for award-winning, international bestselling author Barbara Wood. Her twenty-one novels are published in more than thirty languages. She lives with her husband in California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 234 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse Star (June 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583480099
• ISBN-13: 978-1583480090
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #735,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kathryn Harvey returns!, July 26, 2005

By 

mrshvd3 "mrshvd3" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Private Entrance (Paperback)

If you've read (and re-read and re-read) "Butterfly", then you are familiar with Kathryn Harvey. "Private Entrance" isn't a sequel to "Butterfly" (although there is a passing reference to that book's main character Beverly Highland); it stands on its own. Ms. Harvey has a great way of starting out with many diverse threads and slowly weaving them until they all come together in the end, and this book is a great example of her talent. Plenty of mystery and action, beautiful and graphic descriptions of a desert resort we'd all love to visit, drop-jaw revelations...and since this is Kathryn Harvey, lots of hot sex (unless you are inclined to jump in and out of a cold shower every few pages, I recommend keeping a spritzer bottle of cold water nearby!). Welcome back, K.H.!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book!, September 7, 2005

By 

Mary (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Private Entrance (Paperback)

This was a fantastic-and super spicy!-addition to both Butterfly and Stars. Kathryn Harvey/Barbara Wood is one of the most gifted writers in America. She can take numerous characters and a wide variety of individual storylines and magically pull them all together into one fantastic, sexy book! I truly couldn't put this one down once I started reading it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Woman With a Past, August 14, 2007

By 

Kara J. Jorges "Avid Reader" (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Private Entrance (Paperback)

Emmy Lou Pagan is on the lam. When she was 16, she was convicted of a murder she didn't commit and sentenced to life in prison. She had been pregnant at the time, and the prison matrons stole her baby and sold it on the black market, telling her it had died. When she finds out the truth, she escapes prison and devotes her life to finding her child. She changes her name to Abby Tyler, and over the years, becomes a successful resort owner. Her resort is The Grove, located in the desert not far from Palm Springs, so remote that guests come and go by airplane rather than car. The Grove is a discreet, anything goes type of place frequented by celebrities and anyone else with the cash to live out a few of their fantasies.

Ophelia, Coco, and Sissy are three very different women who all receive notice that they won a contest entitling them to a week's stay at the Grove. Coco, a police psychic, goes to the resort in search of her soul mate, eagerly hooking up with any man who seems like he might fit the bill, yet finding herself attracted to a man named Kenny who does a memory act at the resort. Kenny doesn't seem to fit any of the criteria Coco's crystal had promised her soul mate would have, but she can't seem to stop thinking about him. Sissy receives a nasty surprise when she gets to the resort, causing her to examine her entire life and marriage. Ophelia comes to do some thinking. She's got an intense personal dilemma on her hands, and hopes to be able to work it out at the resort. None of the women can remember entering a contest, but they all accept the prize for their own reasons. Abby Tyler has one reason for having invited the three women: one of them is her long-lost daughter.

While the guests at the resort live out their fantasies and work out their personal issues, a dark force is at work in Las Vegas. Mike Fallon is now an important businessman, but he's had to silence a few people who know about his sordid past along the way. Now, Abby Tyler is looking into his baby smuggling activities, and he needs to silence her before his precious daughter's wedding to a socially prominent man. While Abby Tyler and her guests go about their business, Fallon concocts a plan that could destroy everything.

Kathryn Harvey seems to have the formula down for a good thriller starring a woman with a past. Her two previous novels, Butterfly and Stars, did it a little better than this one, but this is still a good book on its own merits. Whereas Harvey's earlier efforts delved deeply into the heroine's back story, following her from her humble beginnings to the successful woman she becomes, this book merely made a few references to the past and dealt mostly with the present, concentrating more on sex and fantasies than the actual story. That's great news for readers who go for that kind of thing, but it's a bit disappointing for someone who loved the depth in Harvey's earlier books. This is definitely an erotic thriller, but at least it refrains from using crude terms or being outright unrealistic in its descriptions. While her earlier work was better, Kathryn Harvey can still pen a great book.