IN REAL LIFE, I'M JUST KATE

At 17, Kate Rafferty takes a job in a daytime serial because her actor father has been dropped from the same show and someone has to support the family's House and Garden home. Kate isn't stagestruck and keeps insisting she'd rather be just Kate; but then too there is much made of the confusing parallels between her situation and that of her character, RACHEL (that's how all the characters' names appear), a goody-goody innocent falling under the spell of evil CAREY, played by handsome and talented Fitch. Kate and Fitch work well together--they have ""chemistry""--and become good friends. Kate denies that there is more to their relationship, but after Fitch is canned and returns (from New York) to LA, she realizes she loves him, flies out unannounced, and learns that the feeling is mutual. Oh yes--in the meantime Kate has become a star of the show, used her clout to get her father back in it, and decided she does want to act after all. Though Kate puts down the ""shallow"" unreal world of the soaps, her real-life story is on the same level. Morgenroth may hook steady watchers with her inside views of making soaps and her similar methods (dangling hints of coming encounters, pulling readers along with slick dialogue that keeps rolling or pointing ahead); but if she's trying to have it both ways, she fails to demonstrate any perspective on the tricks and concepts of the business.