Vegas Heat » (Abridged, 3 CDs, 3 hrs. 8 min.)

With over than sixty million copies of her books sold around the world, New York Times bestselling author Fern Michaels pens romance after epic romance, each filled with all the drama and heartbreak her loyal fans can handle.

Vegas Heat is the powerful story of the Thornton dynasty. . . of Fanny's twin sons, Sage and Birch: alienated from each other, one is content in his conventional life while the other's search for happiness leads to tragedy - and renewed hope. It is the story of Fanny's two daughters: Sunny, betrayed by her husband, fighting a battle no woman should ever have to face. . . Billie, whose obsessive devotion to the Thorntons' children's clothing empire has kept her from finding love. It is also the story of Fanny's search for her own roots. . . and her relationship with Marcus Reed, the wealthy but mysterious businessman who promises her a passion she has been denied for too long.

A poignant and passionate tale of pride and ambition, heartbreak and betrayal, tragedy and triumph, Vegas Heat resonates with drama and emotion. It is the story of a family's struggle for success against all odds and their search for love and acceptance. It is Fern Michaels at the peak of her storytelling powers.

Publishers Weekly

Michaels's Vegas Rich saw millionaire ex-prostitute Sallie Coleman bequeath her fortune to her daughter-in-law, Fanny Thornton. In this second installment of an intended trilogy, it is 1980 and Fanny has divorced her misanthropic playboy husband, Ash Thornton, who has been confined to a wheelchair since he fell from a girder during the construction of Babylon, the Thorntons' Las Vegas casino. Searching for happiness, Fanny marries her longtime lover, Simon, who is Ash's brother. After three years of living in the mountains breeding Yorkie pups, Fanny remains unfulfilled. Simon's sudden possessiveness has stifled her spirit and estranged her four children, including daughter Sunny, who is fighting a debilitating disease. When Ash learns he hasn't long to live, Fanny takes over Babylon and ends her marriage to Simon, who tries to gain possession of the casino through the divorce proceedings, only to be trounced in a gratifying scene featuring a tough-as-nails lawyer. Elsewhere, however, Michaels's soap-opera plotting is trite and her villains disappointingly wimpy. Fanny even manages to save Ash from some mafioso-type loan sharks by giving them a stern tongue-lashing and ordering the electricity in their casinos switched off. Crude sex scenes ("Stoke that fire, baby. Do it, do it, do it!") are thankfully few, but long-lost Thornton relatives and illegitimate offspring swarm like locusts. In the end, Fanny leaves Las Vegas with a new man, this one blessedly unrelated to the Thornton clan, though Michaels shows no sign of straying from her reliable formula of equal parts glitz and true grit. (Mar.)