Jill Marie Landis, Heartbreak Hotel

Jill Marie Landis, Heartbreak Hotel - Six months ago her spouse Glenn Potter suddenly died, leaving his thirty-three-year-old widow Tracy broke and alone raising their preadolescent son Matthew and trying to help her stepdaughter Chelsea pay her college tuition. The only assets the IRS could not take away were the nineteenth-century, run-down Heartbreak Hotel, overlooking the Pacific, as that was in Matt's name, and a trust fund her grandparents left her. A desperate Tracy and Matt move into the hotel with Chelsea residing with them when she is not attending school.

Since the Twilight Cove Historical Society got the Heartbreak Hotel listed as a historical landmark, Tracy cannot sell, that is if she could even find a buyer. Using her trust fund, she begins renovations when Wade Johnson arrives and asks to spend the night paying with cash. Needing the money, she agrees; that one day stay turns into a week. Wade and Tracy are attracted to one another, but he knows nothing can come of it as long as he must hide from his fame, his past, and mostly his dreams that inspire the words that frighten him to hole up in offbeat places.

HEARTBREAK HOTEL is a strange, very interesting, contemporary, romantic thriller with a gothic feel to the plot. The storyline is character-driven by the lead couple and enhanced by a solid cast, including her son and the source of the dreams. Wade will intrigue the audience as they will wonder if he is the romantic hero or a dangerous person on the lam perhaps from himself and ponder whether he harmed others. Jill Marie Landis keeps the suspense and romance high as fans will contemplate which will ultimately win out.

Ballantine, May 2005, $23.95, 352 pp.

ISBN: 0345453301

Harriet Klausner