A Moment in Time - Hardcover

Gould, Judith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316851701 ISBN 13: 9780316851701

Publisher: Dutton, 2001

Synopsis

Valerie Rochelle was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but as she grows up she is made to feel like an outsider always looking in at the perfect world of her parents. Gangly, tomboyish and shy, she's not pretty, popular or social enough to satisfy her family. For friendship and love she turns to animals with whom she develops quick and special bonds. She defies her family's wishes and trains as a veterinarian and, at the same time, she blossoms into a strikingly beautiful young woman and attracts Teddy de Mornay, a charming, handsome and popular young man who her family considers the ideal match for their daughter. While practising as a vet in the country, Valerie comes to the conclusion that Teddy isn't the man she thought he was. She meets Wyn Conrad, a mysterious stranger with a dark secret who is proprietor of Stonelair, a horse farm. They fall in love but their happiness is threatened from all sides. Unknown to them, Wyn's soon-to-be ex-wife will stop at nothing to see them both dead, as will his righthand man, Santo, and one of Valerie's colleagues has reasons of her own to murder them both - as well as Teddy.

About this title

About the Author

Judith Gould, whose books have been translated into twenty two languages, lives and writes in Malden Bridge, New York.

From Publishers Weekly

"Don't take the ring!" you want to shout, when slithery Teddy de Mornay offers a humongous canary diamond to Valerie Rochelle. Valerie not only had the democratic good taste to drop the "de la" from her own name when she added "Doctor of Veterinary Medicine," she's also a woman of character tender yet tough, loyal and fearless. Alas, Teddy's romantic persistence, backed by a libido that doesn't quit, is persuasive. Then Valerie's pager intrudes: a horse has been taken ill at the mysterious estate called Stonelair, and the plucky vet drives off alone through the dark, twisty landscape. (The cinematic locale of this sudsy romance-thriller, never specified, is a rich Eastern seaboard community with lush scenery, vast mansions and prosperous farms.) It isn't only the stallion Storm Warning that needs healing, however. Laird of the manor Wyndym Ashley Conrad, who was dragged across a field in a polo accident, is scarred body and soul. Before Valerie and Wyn can have their happy ending (this time she gets a green diamond, to match her eyes), they have to do battle with the cocaine-fueled greed of his separated wife, Arielle; the perfidy of major domo Santo Ducci; and the crazed jealousy of one of Valerie's associates, whose rage drives her to murder several beloved pets under Valerie's care. Plausible? Subtle? Inventive? None of the above. But bestselling Gould (Time to Say Good-Bye) knows what makes a yummy, lo-cal summer salad: snaky evil defeated by redemptive true love with lots of hot un-dressing as the thunder crashes.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dutton
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0316851701
• ISBN 13: 9780316851701
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448