Tempting Fate [Paperback]

Carla Neggers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1993

Dani Penbroke is interested in putting her mother's mysterious disappearance years ago behind her, but the passionate arrival of Zeke Cutler in her life will force her to confront her past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Headstrong, impassioned and independent, Dani Pembroke is nobody's fool. Left virtually parentless at age nine when her mother inexplicably vanished and her father abdicated responsibility for her upbringing to her grandmother, Dani is at 34 a successful entrepreneur. The granddaughter of two wealthy scions from Saratoga, N.Y., a town known for its extravagance and flamboyance, Dani has tried to forge her own identity amid the allure of old money and the unpleasantness of old feuds. Then Zeke Cutler, aloof, handsome and self-employed as a sort of private detective, arrives in Saratoga at the height of its racing season to resolve the same mystery Dani is pursuing: the circumstances surrounding her mother's disappearance. She joins forces with him although she doesn't completely trust him. When the consequences of past events threaten her business--a mineral water bottling plant and spa--Zeke offers the combination of bravado and stability that Dani needs to make peace with her past. Neggers's ( That Stubborn Yankee ) engaging romantic mystery neatly blends fiction with authentic detail .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Together with Zeke Cutler, successful businesswoman Dani Pembroke sets out to solve the 25-year-old mystery of her mother's disappearance, and, in the process, they resurrect old secrets that someone will do anything to keep buried. Wealthy, extravagant Saratoga is the high-profile setting for this chilling thriller. -- Library Journal, Kristin Ramsdell --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Berkley (March 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425130738
• ISBN-13: 978-0425130735
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,815,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carla Neggers is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 60 novels, including SAINT'S GATE, the first in her new Sharpe & Donovan series, and SECRETS OF THE LOST SUMMER. Her work has been translated into two dozen languages. Carla is a founding member of the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America and has served as president of Novelists, Inc. and vice president of International Thriller Writers.

Born and raised in western Massachusetts, Carla started writing at age eleven, when she'd climb a tree with pad and pen and perch on her favorite branch to spin stores. When she isn't writing, she enjoys kayaking, hiking, cross-country skiing and traveling. Carla and her husband, Joe Jewell, live on a hilltop in Vermont, not far from picturesque Quechee Gorge.

For more information and to contact Carla, visit her Web site: www.CarlaNeggers.com. You can also find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carlaneggers or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/carlaneggers.

Photo credit: Julie Ireland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Full of suspense and mystery but almost predictable., September 11, 2008

By 

GinRobi (Timmins, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tempting Fate (Mass Market Paperback)

Much to the chagrin of her Chandler relatives, Danielle Chandler Pembroke (Dani Pembroke) has returned to Saratoga Springs and has become an entrepreneur. Opening the Pembroke home as a hotel and re-opening the bottling plant (Pembroke mineral water), rumors begin to fly that she is over-extending her funds and is in trouble. The family is one edge as well - 25 years ago, Lilli Chandler Pembroke, her mother, had gone missing, never to be seen or heard from again. But Dani is determined - not only to persevere in spite of what others and her family thinks of her thriving business, but to figure out what happened to her mother as well.

Ezekiel Cutler (Zeke), a security expert, receives a note from Dani's estranged great-aunt; seems there is more to Lilli's disappearance than most people would like to believe. He's come to Saratoga Springs to figure out what happened and seek justice for his dead brother, Joe.

First, Dani finds a Pembroke gold gate key, believed to be the key that Lilli was wearing around her neck when she disappeared. Someone breaks into her cottage and ransacks it, taking the matching gold and brass keys and gives Dani a shove before escaping. While waiting in her garden, Zeke enters her life. Believing him to be her attacker, she throws a bottle at his head, runs through the house, grabbing a cast-iron frying pan and her car keys and races to the front, only to find Zeke leaning against her car door.

Zeke wants Dani to trust him, but he's mysterious, evasive with answers to her questions and Dani doesn't trust him in the least. Especially when he gets close - mysterious and evasive are enough to distrust him, and his looks and manner don't help in the least. He's too good-looking, and Dani believes she has enough on her plate than to be distracted by him.

More events begin to happen; someone ransacks room 304, Zeke's room. More facts arise but don't fit each other. Her father, who has come back to Saratoga at his father's request, is attacked while roaming the grounds. While in the forest on Pembroke grounds, Ira has come looking for Dani, only to be attacked, believed by the same man who attacked her father. And while all this is going on, her grandfather and grandmother both come back to Saratoga. As if Dani didnt' have enough to worry about, now the press is hounding her as well. More attacks, shootings, and confrontations make up a lot of the suspenseful and tenseful scenes.

Despite it all, Dani and Zeke are determined to find out what happened to Lilli.

I found Dani to be a strong woman, one who goes after what she wants, despite threats and concerns from her relatives. When rumors begin to fly that she's over-extending herself and facing financial ruin, she is determined more than ever to make her businesses succeed, regardless if the notorious Pembroke name has everyone believing otherwise. I think in spite of it, Dani is proud to be a Pembroke, even if the two most important men in her life, her father and grandfather, have let her down time and again. She's determined to rise above.

Zeke enters her life in a rather strange way. His evasiveness to talk about himself or his past has her on alert and distrustful. And no matter how much she wants to distrust him, he still manages to get under her skin.

One strange thing leads to another, and both become even more determined to find out what happened to Dani's mother - for completely seperate reasons. Dani hasn't seen nor heard from her mother in 25 years, since she was nine years old. Not knowing makes the past all that more painful. For Zeke, the disappearance seemed to disturb his brother, who was killed in combat overseas. After the pulitzer prize winning book, Joe Cutler: One Soldier's Rise and Fall written by Quint Skinner, had disturbed Zeke the most. By the end of the novel, Joe was no longer the brother he knew and loved, and he believed that there was a reason for it, that Lilli's disappearance played a part of it. Quint had been a soldier beside Joe when Joe was killed, and Zene believed that Quint knew more than he was telling.

The suspense and tension had this reader flipping the page, the mystery constantly in my mind. The action picks up as more attacks and shootings begin to happen, adding more to the mystery. But Dani figures it out first, putting her in a position she never dreamed she'd be in, and Zeke comes to the rescue, figuring it out right after Dani. I thought the `who' was slightly predictable, but the why wasn't. It was the scenes after the end of the mystery that I thought was a great added touch: two estranged sisters (Dani's grandmother, Mattie, and great-aunt, Naomi) finally reunited, Mattie and Nick still love each other, even if they couldn't be together. When Zeke had left, he told Dani that she'd have to find him if she wanted him. Everyone at the Pembroke pitched in a plane ticket, and with Zeke's partner's directions, Dani hunts Zeke down. A perfect ending.

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring..., February 17, 2009

By 

DonnaRee15 (Somewhere in my head...in IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tempting Fate (Mass Market Paperback)

I cannot in all honesty recommend this book.

I found it boring and with too many characters to try and remember. The book is supposed to be a mystery/suspense, however, I didn't find it the least bit suspenseful.

Granted, I read 2/3 of the book before I just had to quit - as I said before...BORING. I found that I didn't really care why Lilli disappeared and never could figure out why everyone waited until 25 years later to find out. If a book hasn't pulled me into it by 2/3 of the way through I find it to be a hopeless cause and not worth my time in reading it.

If you're already a fan of Ms. Neggers then you'll probably read this book anyway so my review won't make any difference to you. However, if you've never read a book by her before (this was my 1st and last by her), I wouldn't recommend starting out with this one.

4.0 out of 5 stars Tempting Fate, December 6, 2008

By 

Island Grandma (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tempting Fate (Mass Market Paperback)

Very well written. One of the author's earlier books that I had not read. A good mystery with all the usual twists and turns but also fascinating background and history about the locale in which it takes place.