The Black Sheep (Silhouette Desire, No 696)

Rating:
Summary: Sometimes the Black Sheep is the Good Sheep
Review: Prospero "Roe" Hunter is the black sheep son of a Frank Sinatra like singer and a Judy Garland like mother. He has grown up in the shadow of the tabloids and his mother's alcoholism. His parents were always fighting. His older brother, Vince, left home early and is a successful business manager, in fact he manages one of the most successful rock acts in the world, Gingie, who is a Madonna like superstar.

All Roe ever wanted was a loving family and privacy, two things denied him, so is it any wonder that when he was old enough to leave home, that he went as far away as he could get. And that was to Africa, where he conducted six month overland expeditions. No phones, no photographers, no reporters, no news from the outside world at all.

But after several years of doing that, he decides to come back to the States for a visit and he finds his younger sister in the throws of addiction, on a fast track to an early death, so he blackmails her into a treatment center, then runs to Sontara, a Greek island and the estate there that had been left to him and his brother by his famous mother in her will. There he plans on doing nothing but lazing his days away until he decides what to do with his life.

Then he gets the phone call from brother Vince. He is going to have heart surgery and he needs somebody to babysit Gingie. Though she is a superstar, she has been pampered her whole life, she can't shop for herself, much less write a check. All she can do is sing. Roe does not want this charge, but Vince persuades him.

Two days later Gingie arrives on Sontero and is held up by Customs because they suspect she is bringing in drugs which turn out to be homeopathic medicines supplied her by her doctor sister Letitia. However her arrival has created a stir on the quiet island and she is photographed with Roe as they leave the airport.

Gingie isn't exactly the airhead, she's been painted to be. And she's not the floozy the tabloids think she is. In fact she's been celibate her whole thirty-one years. She is the daughter of genius parents and has genius siblings and because of this and because she'd always done poorly in school, she'd worked extra hard at the only thing she knew how to do, sing. And she'd sung her way to the top. Music had been her whole life.

As she settles in on Sontero, Roe starts feeling that old devil attraction. But before they can get to know each other in that way, Gingie's friends descend on the island and now the place is in a real uproar and Roe is confused as all get out. Gingie is confused too. She's beginning to think that maybe sacrificing her art to celibacy might not be such a good idea after all.

Ms. Leone, who is actually the gifted fantasy writer Laura Resnick, has written a fun filled romance that kept me up all night. Ms. Leone-Resnick writes about what she knows, for example she once did a six month overland trip in Africa and that is certainly why the reader is so engrossed when her hero Roe talks about his African adventures. This is just a divine story. Really, I can't praise it highly enough.

A note here: If you'd like to read about Ms. Resnick's sometimes scary adventures in the Dark Continent, you can, in her excellent true-life adventure tale, A BLONDE IN AFRICA. I can gurantee-darn-tee you that that book will have you on the edge of your seat.