Sweet Liar

Features

• Cover Type: Mass Market Paperback with 448 pages
• Published by: Pocket May 1, 1993
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0671689746
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0671689742
• Book Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 7.4 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Perennial bestseller Deveraux ( The Duchess ) involves yet another spunky heroine in a formulaic romance. After her divorce and her father's death in early 1991, 28-year-old Sam Elliott arrives in New York City to search for clues to the riddle of her grandmother's mysterious 1964 disappearance. Her father's will directs her to spend a year on this quest while renting an apartment from his young friend Mike Taggert, who is writing a book about Prohibition-era gangster Doc Barrett. Mike requirements Sam's assistance to land an interview with the still-living Barrett, and despite her fear of her dangerously attractive landlord she becomes increasingly involved with his work and attracted to both him and his large, loving family; she also comes closer to the truth about her grandmother's bizarre past. Deveraux knows Manhattan and provides entertaining descriptions of the speakeasy age in Harlem, but her cliche-laden dialogue makes it seem that her characters speak English as a second language. The highly improbable story line, overloaded with convoluted plots and subplots, will discourage even the most die-hard romance fan. Literary Guild and Doub le day Book Club main selections.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
Huge-selling historical-romancer Deveraux (The Duchess, A Knight in Shining Armor, etc.) moves from 19th-century Scotland to present-day Manhattan for this valentine to conspicuous consumption--here, starring a self-righteous heroine with the inchoate inconstancy of a hormone-addled 12-year-old. Orphaned at 28 by her father's death, Samantha Elliott has ``seen more death than most people experience in a lifetime.'' First, she lost her grandparents; now both parents are dead. Fresh from New Mexico, Samantha is in New York to honor her father's will, which requires her to live there for a year while searching for the grandmother who disappeared when she was a toddler. But Samantha is soon paralyzed by depression and a morbid fear of the city; fortunately, though, Superman is close at hand in the muscle- bound human being of Samantha's landlord, tall-dark-'n'-handsome Mike Taggert--who gives her the most passionate kiss of her life when they first meet and before they've exchanged even a word. Together, Samantha and Mike will reconstruct her grandmother's fate (much of which is strikingly similar to the 1985 movie Maxie). In the process, Samantha has an emotional reunion with her only surviving relative, gradually gets back in touch with her feelings, and discovers in herself a passion for shopping so pure that she sings paeans even to the ``very pretty lavatory'' in a Ralph Lauren shop. And, yes, she falls hard for Mike, who gets her pregnant and then marries her, a true hero for the '90s. Super-dumb and super-tedious. (Literary Guild Triple Selection for October) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
Samantha is a damaged soul. Everyone she's ever loved has been taken from her and she has learned to put all the pain into an isolated part of her heart and move on. When Samantha was twelve, her mother, while in a mad rush to get through her schedule so she can take Samantha to a friend's party, was hit by a car and killed. Her father, blaming Samantha for the accident, plummeted into a clinical depression and ignored her throughout most of her teen years. In a desperate bid for her father's forgiveness, Samantha sacrificed everything in her life to take care of him including marrying the man he chose for her. Years later, on the day Samantha buried her father, she received divorced papers from her adulterous husband. To compound her unhappiness, she discovers that, in order to inherit all the money her father left her, he made a final demand: Samantha would have to move to New York, to an apartment he's already rented for her, to find her long lost grandmother. She has a year to complete this task or lose her inheritance. Samantha's saving grace comes into her life in the form of her landlord, Michael Taggert, a larger-than-life, math genius and millionaire, with a devil-may-care attitude. To Samantha's dismay, she finds out that Mike is Samantha's guardian and her father's will stipulates that Mike has to be satisfied with Samantha's research before the money is released to her. Mike joins Samantha in unraveling her grandmother's past, but their investigation draws unwanted and dangerous attention from a mysterious villain who has already resorted to murder to discover the secret that Samantha's grandmother has risked her life to preserve. This was such a great read. It's fast-paced, hard to put down, fraught with dangerous plots and twists that you won't be disappointed. I love Jude Deveraux's writing. Her talent at weaving such wonderfully complex storylines is sheer magic.