Sara Daniel, Lane to Heaven

Lane to Heaven

Sara Daniel

Five Star, Mar 2007, $26.95

ISBN: 1594145695

Chicago lawyer Nick McAllister arrives in nearby Maplefield to destroy the reputation of a do-gooder, the Protestant Reverend Annie Lane. He detests the woman on two counts though he never met her before. She destroyed his half-brother Jason Vonkall who tried to commit suicide due to her when he drove his car into Lake Michigan and her hypocrisy reminds him of his father.

At first sight the pair are attracted to one another, but he is stunned by how virginally different she seems than what he expected; he assumes like his father she is a great performer. Nick "blackmails' Annie to visit Jason, who admits he never met her before. Jason explains to her about meeting her sister, Tanya, the spoiled actress known as the "world's sexiest viper" and insists he was not trying to kill himself. As her flock begin to whisper about her indiscretion with Nick, she falls in love with him; he reciprocates but remains at best an agnostic skeptic when it comes to God's existence and an atheist when it comes to organized religions like she preaches even as Tanya's Hollywood actions involving her druggy spouse and a protective cop will soon come to roost in the Midwest.

LANE TO HEAVEN is an entertaining, contemporary romance with some suspense (with a support character named Hardball what would one expect) that comes late in the storyline. The lead couple is an interesting pairing of a skeptic (hopefully my brother-in-law Stephen does not read this, but he is a lawyer) and a believer whose lives intertwine due to the antics of siblings. Fans will enjoy this fine tale in which Nick learns that love is the LANE TO HEAVEN on earth.

Harriet Klausner