Jude Deveraux First Impressions

First Impressions

Jude Deveraux

Atria, Nov 2005, $25.95, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0743437144

Forty-nine year old Agent Jared McBride feels too old to do another field assignment, but his boss insists. Agent Roger Applegate had been selling out his country for fifteen years, but swallowed incriminating notes just before the feds arrived; they found the hard way, a scrap that named an Eden Palmer with her social security number. The Feds want to know the connection.

Jared is to investigate forty-five year old single mom Eden who recently left New York City when she inherited a home in Arundel, North Carolina, from the late Alice Farrington who she once worked for. Jared learns that when his target was seventeen she was coming home from choir practice when she was raped; when she became pregnant her parents tossed her out of her home. Alice took her and her newborn into her home, but Eden fled when Melissa turned five because her employer's son was a paedophile.

Jared knows he must be cautious, because someone killed agent Tess Brewster in Arundel. To get close to Eden he begins to court her, but for the first time Jared is emotionally involved, as he has fallen in love with his mark who may be a traitor.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS is a delightful romantic thriller that stars two wonderful middle age protagonists, both wanting to start over. Jared is caught between duty and love, as he finds the warm Eden is a fabulous beautiful person who he desires, and is so removed from his FIRST IMPRESSIONS of a victimized Mother Theresa (based on her file). Eden just wants to connect, but also begins to learn that a house is not a home. Together with a fine support cast, they provide fans with an enjoyable romantic suspense.

Harriet Klausner