Linda Howard, Drop Dead Gorgeous

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Linda Howard

Ballantine, December 2006, $7.99, 347 pp.

ISBN 0345486587

Blair Mallory is one of the happiest women on the planet. She is engaged to marry Police Lieutenant Wyatt Bloodsworth, and their biggest problem is setting a date. He would like to be married yesterday, and she wants the wedding of her dreams. He finally tells her that it will be in one month or he will arrange the nuptials his way, and she knows he isn't joking.

While shopping in a mall for a wedding dress, a car almost hits her as she leaves the store, and she is taken to the hospital. Wyatt thinks it is road rage, but she thinks someone was trying to kill her. She begins getting a series of hang up phone calls, and one where someone whispers threatening words. Her car is keyed, which Wyatt puts down to kids vandalizing property. When she tells him he doesn't trust her instincts, they get into an argument and say things that make it doubtful there will be a wedding. When Blair's home burns down due to arson, her lover finally believes her, but they have no clue who the person is or what that person has against Blair.

Linda Howard and great romantic suspense novels are synonymous, and her fans expect each book she writes to be stupendous. In DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, they won't be disappointed, as the sexual tension between the lovers crackles. Told in the first person, from Blair's perspective, readers will find her admirable and intelligent. She knows what she wants, and she uses her feminine wiles in a humorous way to get it without being the least obnoxious. She is one of Ms. Howard's most special characters.