"Romantic suspense at its very best"

Matherly Press is a well-respected publishing house based in New York run by publisher and vice president Maris Matherly-Reed and her husband Noah, also a vice president. Although Maris is at the top of the power game, she still goes through the slush pile to see if she can find that once in once in a lifetime bestseller. She thinks she's found it when she reads the prologue to ENVY written by somebody with the initials PME. There is no name or address on the package so Maris has to do a little sleuthing to track down the author.

When she locates him, she travels down to St. Anne's Island off the Georgia coast to meet with him. What she finds is a wheelchair bound man who wants her to leave. Her determination to stay leads to a mutual attraction that neither of them wanted. Although she tries her best to control her desires by returning to her husband, Noah's betrayal sends her back to Parker Evans. She doesn't realize that Parker has been close to Noah years ago and has been betrayed by him as well or that her new author's actions are a means of gaining revenge on the man who came close to destroying him.

Sandra Brown has written another fantastic work of romantic suspense that has a refreshing and unusual plot device to move the story line forward. The reactions of her characters are very realistic and that makes them all the more enchanting to the audience. ENVY is a tale of love, betrayal and redemption, cleverly mixed together to insure another bestseller (deservedly so). Ms. Brown's most creative talent is to create flawed characters acting heroically.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 5, 2001