Laura Van Wormer's
Exposé finds a young journalist caught between the comforts of home and the bright lights of the Big Apple. Leaving a promising magazine job in L.A. to care for her cancer-stricken mother back home in Connecticut seems to have put the kibosh on Sally Harrington's glamorous career. And while writing for the local paper is good, honest work, it definitely lacks the excitement that old La-La Land offered. That is, until she happens upon a dead body dumped in the middle of nowhere--a corpse that may well be linked to her father's death 21 years before. Just as Sally begins to sink her teeth into this whopper of a story, an offer from a high-gloss magazine rolls in, complete with a cover story, a sizable expense account, and numerous trips to the city. One of these forays leads to an encounter with Spencer Hawes, an editor who definitely has more than manuscripts on his mind:
And then we are walking again, hand in hand, along Central Park South, toward my hotel. When we pass what is the old Ritz, Spencer suddenly turns to me and sweeps me back up against the building and gives me the most wonderfully romantic, passionate kiss. We are in a clinch. And he feels absolutely marvelous and all I want is to be there, with him, feeling him hold me.
While Spencer's ardor is enticing, it nonetheless forces Sally to examine her on-again, off-again, back-on-again relationship with her hometown sweetheart, assistant D.A. Doug Wrentham, something she's long avoided. As if all this weren't enough to keep her occupied, mysteriosos tied to the recent murder come calling and her heart begs for a little resolution. Well paced and suspenseful, with just enough relationship drama to keep you guessing,
Exposé is the perfect lazy-day read.
--Stefanie Hargreaves
Readers of Van Wormer's romantic suspense tale Just for the Summer will find themselves on familiar turf here. Once again, an appealing heroine who stands at romantic and professional crossroads ends up playing Nancy Drew in a dangerous mystery connected to her family's past. Here, too, the background is East Coast upper crust, with a sprinkling of cameo appearances by real-life movers and shakers. Van Wormer may be formulaic, but she's very good at what she does. Her 30-year-old protagonist, journalist Sally Harrington, is an appealing mix of brains and folly. She has the moral courage to join a sandbag brigade when there's a fire in her hometown, Castleford, Conn., but she's not beyond tumbling into bed with Manhattan book editor Spencer Hawes even though she's officially in love with her high school beau, Assistant District Attorney Doug Wrentham. In lively prose generously spiked with believable dialogue, Van Wormer weaves Sally's romantic dilemma through a thick plot centered around her plummy assignment from tabloid magazine Expectations: to profile Cassy Cochran, the beautiful and beloved president of the Darenbrook Broadcasting System. But is the assignment what it seems? Or does Expectations's venal publisher, Verity Rhodes, have a hidden agendaAand will Sally's ambitions lead her to play Verity's game? Meanwhile, can Sally find the connection between the murder victim she discovers under a railroad trestle and her own father's death in a flood two decades ago? Though the answers are never in doubt, Van Wormer does keep the reader guessing on the romantic front and entertained by Sally's outspoken mother, Belle, a New England classic. Agent, Loretta Barrett. Author tour. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.