Rosewood
From its "cute meet" to its happy ending, there is no doubt love will triumph in Camp's ( Light and Shadow ) sweet, if somewhat bland tale of romance in a small town in 19th-century Texas. Millicent Hayes, a 29-year-old "spinster of good breeding," doesn't want it said that she is chasing Jonathan Lawrence, the handsome journalist who has bought the empty house next door. After all, her life is devoted to her brother Alan, who has been unable to walk since his accident 11 years ago. Moreover, the new neighbors are very trying: Jonathan's 10-year-old daughter Betsy is an undisciplined hoyden whose dog digs up Millicent's flowers and tears down her laundry--to Jonathan's obvious amusement. But when Opal Wilkins, pregnant and unmarried, comes job-hunting at the newspaper and collapses in Jonathan's office, he turns for help to Millicent, who defies small-town busybodies to give Opal a home. As Millicent learns to see beyond Jonathan's irreverence and he beyond her starchiness, mutual respect and affection develop and the determined spinster finds herself caught between her yearning for marriage and duty to her brother. $60,000 ad/promo.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theMass Market Paperbackedition.