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"Wonderful romantic fugitive"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 26, 2003

Gabrielle Hadley relocates with her baby Allie to Florence, Arizona to start work as a prison guard at the state facility. She also hopes to find closure by meeting her biological mother who lives nearby and left her for adoption when Gabrielle was an infant. At the prison, Gabrielle intercedes Read more...

"A wonderful story!"
Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted February 18, 2003

This story started out with a bang and believe me, it didn't stop through the whole book! I really wasn't sure how I would like a story about a convicted murderer and a prison guard but Brenda Novak knows how to hook a reader and drag her right to Read more...

Read an Excerpt

Taking the Heat, where the captor becomes the captive. . .

Twenty-eight-year-old divorcee Gabrielle Hadley wants nothing more than to gain some closure on her past and establish a productive life for her and her baby daughter. But when she witnesses a brutal beating at the prison where she works, spurred on by her superior officer and fellow guards, her conscience demands she step in. And that's when she gets to know a man who is far from the murderer others claim him to be.

Summary

The small town of Florence, Arizona, is known for one thing—its prison. Gabrielle Hadley is in Florence for personal reasons though, she's seeking the mother who abandoned her more than two decades ago. In order to support herself and her two-year-old daughter, Gabrielle is working as a prison guard—just about the only job available in this bleak desert town.

Randall Tucker is a prisoner at Florence, convicted of murdering his wife. He has one goal: to survive until he can prove his innocence—and reclaim his seven-year- old son, Landon, now living in foster care.

In the prison's atmosphere of tension and corruption, Gabrielle discovers that Randal Tucker is far from the murderer he's said to be. When he escapes during a prison transfer, she follows him into the unforgiving desert. To protect her job, her own integrity—or him? But the guard becomes the prisoner's captive...and more. It's a relationship that's not supposed to exist and yet it might save them both.