Sweeney is an absolutely engaging heroine. Fiercely independent, reclusive, incapable of playing games, she is a creature unlike any other. It's no wonder that Richard Worth - in the process of divorcing a beautiful, sophisticated bitch can't help but fall in love with her.

As for Richard... You guessed it, he's the tough guy we have come to love from all of Linda Howard's books, but this time, he actually possesses an ounce of sophistication, perhaps in spite of himself. An ex-army ranger, Richard discovered a knack for the Stock Market, and has since made himself filthy rich from it. He's decided, however, that with the millenium coming, he should probably get out of the market. He doesn't enjoy it anyway, so why take a chance on the market crashing do to the Y2K problems that are being anticipated? He wants to finalize his divorce, sell out, and buy a ranch somewhere quieter. And then something happens.

A woman he has always found attractive but never hoped to get near has suddenly opened her eyes to him. Paris Sweeney, who refuses to answer to her first name, has suddenly become aware of him as a man! He doesn't know that she has also started seeing ghosts, and painting grizly murder scenes in her sleep. He just knows that he likes her, that he wants her, and that she is going to be difficult. But challenges have certainly never bothered him, and he immediately sets about coaxing her into a relationship.

Sweeney is undergoing a few changes herself. In the past year she has started seeing ghosts, and as much as she tries to fight it, her painting has drastically changed, and she is becoming unsatisfied with her solitary existance. She wants a "normal" life now, and though she will never exactly have that, with Richard's help, she will never have to be alone again.

As always, Linda Howard combines graphic sex and tenderness to bring us a quirky, beautiful love story between unusual people.

---K.D.