"Romantic suspense at its best"

In New Orleans, though they only met six weeks ago and she still mourns the death of her beloved mother, Paige Reynolds and Johnny Yarbrough share vows of love. He asks her to marry him and she accepts. He gives her his deceased mother's ring to show he is serious, but tells her he will face his tyrannical father by himself when he informs the old man.

Seven years later, Sally McGowan shows Paige a charcoal sketch in which she had to have been the model. The signature is that of "Jay", as she called Johnny, who allegedly died three years ago, but to Paige he died when he never returned for her. Now a social worker, Paige raises their child alone. However, Serena Yarbrough, Johnny's stepmother recognizes the signature and logo with a current date. She thought she killed Jay three years ago so that she and her child would inherit the vast estate. Now she must kill her stepson, her step granddaughter and her step daughter-in-law to insure the proper succession. When her thugs snatch the child, Paige needs to find a dead man to save her daughter's life.

HEIR TO SECRET MEMORIES is an exciting contemporary romantic suspense. The lead couple is a fine duo, but it is Paige whom readers will admire. Serena is a caricature of Cruella and though Mallory Kane intended it that way, her villainy seems cartoonish. The story line is exhilarating leading to the audience wanting to know what really happened to Johnny seven and three years ago.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 18, 2003

Summary

After he was brutally attacked and left for dead, Jay Wellcome had lost all of his memories. But even his amnesia couldn't erase the haunting image of a nameless beauty.... Though Jay never anticipated they'd ever come face-to-face, Paige Reynolds appeared before him like a beautiful apparition. Except he didn't — couldn't — remember her, his fingers burned with the knowledge of the curves of her body.

Paige tearfully claimed that her young daughter had been kidnapped. She needed him, and her vulnerability guaranteed his protection. And now nothing would stop him from tracking a killer — especially when he learned that her child was also his....