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Barbara Delinsky started out her writing career creating novels for the category romance genre, partly under pseudonyms; but she has evolved into a name-brand all her own, praised by romance fans for the layered plotting and the complex characters on display in literally dozens of bestsellers.

Nothing can prepare writer Hillary Cox for seeing her lover of 20 years, mining magnate John St. George, announce on television that he's marrying another woman. Seeking revenge, Hillary begins a tell-all book exposing John and his shady past. John's sister, Pamela St. George, also wants revenge against her brother. Throughout her life, Pamela has suffered horrifying abuses at John's hands. She sets out to wrest control of the family's tourmaline mining business from him. As Hillary attempts to end her obsession with John, Pamela searches for Cutter Reid, the one man she has always loved, and from whom John has always kept her. Now, a three-decade-old family drama of power, duplicity, and money comes hurtling to an explosive final confrontation with the one man who has so damaged their lives.

Publishers Weekly

Delinsky's ( Heart of the Night ) new tale demonstrates that even when revenge isn't sweet, it still makes palatable reading. Writer Hillary Cox has been exceptionally patient and discreet during her 27-year affair with mining and jewelry magnate John St. George, a man who is, as they say, not the ``marrying kind.'' Thus, when John announces on television that he has become engaged to another woman, Hillary's thoughts turn to equally public revenge: she decides to write a biographical expose of his personal and business life. John's much younger half-sister, Pamela, readily acknowledges that he's ``arrogant, self-centered, despotic, and sly.'' She tries, however, to dissuade Hillary from her plan, hinting that she has more subtle schemes afoot for John's destruction. But the scorned woman forges on, learning that the man for whom she harbors an obsession has a loathsome history of blackmail, theft, heartless seduction, attempted incest and physical violence. Delinsky's story holds up to the last--instead of settling for melodramatic soap opera, she opts for a much less neat but more realistic ending. (Nov.)