The Real Thing
Kay Hooper
Berkley, Nov 2004, $14.00, 480 pp.
ISBN: 0425198332

"Enemy Mine". Over the three years since they first met, rival antiquities experts Tyler St. James and Kane Pendleton have contested one another twelve times with each winning the prize for their respective client on six occasions. Now in Colombia, a third party wants both dead. To survive they must do the impossible by teaming up, but neither expected that joining would lead to falling in love with the enemy.

"The Haviland Touch". A decade has passed since Spencer Wyatt broke Drew Haviland's heart, but though angry he pushed her out of his mind. Now he learns she has sold a family heirloom that she cherished, the Wyatt Emeralds, which he buys. Drew confronts Spencer, accusing her of wasting her father's fortune and now selling off his treasures. He accuses her of planning to use her father's work to find and sell the valuable Hapsburg Cross. Spencer does not correct him although her motive is to prove her beloved daddy was right before he dies. Drew, unable to refuse, pushes himself into Spencer's expedition not realizing how much he still loves her and that he was so wrong about the nurturing woman that the teen he knew has become.

This reprint of two romantic suspense thrillers from about fifteen years ago will thrill readers, especially fans of capable females holding their own and more with strong men. The storylines of both tales are action-packed and filled with intimate moments as combatants fall in love. Fans of Kay Hooper will agree these two novels are THE REAL THING.

Harriet Klausner