When Venus Fell: A Novel - Softcover

Smith, Deborah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553562797 ISBN 13: 9780553562798

Publisher: Bantam, 1999

Synopsis

Home is wherever the heart leads....

The ties that bind us--to our families, to our pasts--are at the heart of this deeply engrossing story.  

Venus Arinelli saw her future as a concert pianist shattered when her father's life ended in disgrace.  Now Venus plays in cocktail lounges, sporting her survival skills like a suit of armor.  When a stranger emerges from her parents' long-ago past with an offer too good to refuse, Venus' suspicions flare up.

But Gib Cameron has a special mission.  He represents the Camerons of Tennessee--a family as rooted in American history and Southern soil as Venus' is notorious and fly-by-night.  Yet the Camerons, survivors of tragedy, need Venus for reasons that have to do with honor and loyalty and an almost mystical bond to their shared past.  And Gib, as hard-eyed a skeptic as Venus herself, has to persuade her to come to their mountain home.

Humor, sexiness, pathos, and surprises are all part of Deborah Smith's unique storytelling magic.  When Venus Fell will entrance readers with its tale of Venus's reluctant journey to Tennessee, where two well-guarded hearts, afraid to trust again, will find they've come home.

About this title

Review

Musical prodigy Venus Arinelli's life shattered at the age of 19 when her father was arrested for anti-government activity. When he died of a heart attack a week later while in custody, Venus took her younger sister and ran from accusations and harassment. Ten years later, she's still running from the government agencies that are eager to place the blame on her every time a subversive group explodes a bomb in the United States.

Gib Cameron was a child of 5 when Venus's parents were married at Cameron Hall. Steeped in tradition, Gib's family is well respected and firmly rooted in American history, while Venus's is notorious and barely a generation away from immigration. But tragedy has come knocking on the venerable door of the Cameron stronghold high in the Tennessee hills, and the matriarchal great-aunt of the clan orders Gib to find the Arinelli sisters and bring them to the Hall. Shari Kirk and Max Arinelli were the first guests to stay there, and the great-aunt believes that their daughters hold the key to the survival of the Hall and the healing of her family.

Gib and Venus are worlds apart on the surface--she with her pierced navel, wild clothing, and career as a lounge musician, and he with his conservative clothing, schooling at the Citadel, and career as a Secret Service agent. But they are soul mates under their skins, for each is deeply honorable, wary of love, and fiercely protective of their families.

The two share in an arduous journey of the heart, searching the past to heal the present and find a future. They take with them a collection of fascinating, well-developed secondary characters in a story that mixes pathos with humor and is rich with human emotion, lush landscapes, and a plot so well conceived that it resonates like a finely tuned Steinway. --Lois Faye Dyer

From the Publisher

"Her tale of redemption and learning to trust again is by turns sad, funny and touching."
--Publishers Weekly

"An enchanting story filled with...unusual plot twists...set on a beautifully depicted Tennessee mountain."
--Booklist

"Deborah Smith has done it again....A very powerful novel destined to be a classic."
--Rendezvous

An alternate selection of the Literary Guild and the Doubleday Book Club

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0553562797
• ISBN 13: 9780553562798
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464