From Publishers Weekly
In a genteel but economically troubled small Texas town, a citizens' committee comes together to make a tough decision. Is the deserted and derelict home of Clinton Creek's founder, Henry Altman, worth saving? Or should the town save itself financially, auctioning off the historic home to be demolished by one of several ruthlessly competing companies who are convinced there's oil underneath? The committee members think the answer lies somewhere in the house, hidden by its last resident, Altman's reclusive daughter, Rosa Lee. But as they uncover the spinster's secret passions, they also expose their own—and open themselves to mysterious dangers. As usual, the author's historical twists are convincing, and her romances involve appealingly warm but wounded characters. This is not an epic novel, however, so the author's decision to concentrate almost equally on three budding romances, rather than focusing on one, means there's little room for any of the protagonists to display much beyond their surface charm. In a book of limited length, three relationships are simply two too many for Thomas to develop with her typical depth and complexity; with couples, as with cooks, too many spoil the broth.
(Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Rosa Lee Altman died a spinster at 92, and left her grand old home and gardens to the town. Professor Sidney Dickerson, unwed and almost 40, feels a strange kinship with Rosa Lee. When the mayor appoints her to a committee charged with deciding what to do with the bequest (they can rebuild, sell, or lease the property to an oil company), she bands together with the other unlikely appointees--two elderly, bickering sisters; a widowed associate minister with a young son; an imaginative young ad executive come home to recover after a nasty divorce left her penniless, homeless, and jobless; and Billy Thatcher, the town troublemaker on probation--to learn about the woman behind the legend, with surprising results. Acclaimed for her Texas-based historical fiction, Thomas appears to have successfully made the leap to contemporary romantic suspense in this return to the small Texas town of Clifton Creek that she introduced in
The Widows of Wichita County (2003).
Lynne WelchCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
