SWEET LIAR

by Jude Deveraux ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1992

Huge-selling historical-romancer Deveraux (The Duchess, A Knight in Shining Armor, etc.) moves from 19th-century Scotland to present-day Manhattan for this valentine to conspicuous consumption--here, starring a self-righteous heroine with the inchoate inconstancy of a hormone-addled 12-year-old. Orphaned at 28 by her father's death, Samantha Elliott has ""seen more death than moat people experience in a lifetime."" First, she lost her grandparents; now both parents are dead. Fresh from New Mexico, Samantha is in New York to honor her father's will, which requires her to live there for a year while searching for the grandmother who disappeared when she was a toddler. But Samantha is soon paralyzed by depression and a morbid fear of the city; fortunately, though, Superman is close at hand in the muscle-bound person of Samantha's landlord, tall-dark-'n'-handsome Mike Taggert--who gives her the mast passionate kiss of her life when they first meet and before they've exchanged even a word. Together, Samantha and Mike will reconstruct her grandmother's fate (much of which is strikingly similar to the 1985 movie Maxie). In the process, Samantha has an emotional reunion with her only surviving relative, gradually gets back in touch with her feelings, and discovers in herself a passion for shopping so pure that she sings paeans even to the ""very pretty lavatory"" in a Ralph Lauren shop. And, yes, she falls hard for Mike, who gets her pregnant and then marries her, a true hero for the '90s. Super-dumb and super-tedious.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992

Categories: FICTION