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As her many fans well know, no one can write a historical romance like Jude Deveraux. Deveraux combines dreamy medieval landscapes with fresh, memorable characters for the epic romances that have become her trademark.

Jace Mongomery was a stranger in Chandler. Tall, proud, and ruggedly handsome, he would make any woman's heart beat faster...

Even shy, sweet Nellie Grayson — Nellie, who thought only of her beautiful younger sister's happiness. With Nellie's tireless aid, Terel Grayson easily became the belle of Chandler, Colorado.

Yet Jace, homesick for his closeknit family in Maine, took immediately to Nellie. For the first time, Nellie was the center of attention. It was a heady, delightful feeling...almost as wonderful as the moment when Jace gave her her very first kiss.

Nellie was sure her romantic idyll would end — how long could Jace resist the lovely Terel's charms? But with the help of an enchanting new friend, Nellie would discover that her flirtatious sister might not be the woman to win the gallant Jace Montgomery....

Publishers Weekly

Deveraux's ( A Knight in Shining Armor ) latest romance is a slight but amusing fantasy . Berni, a selfish woman of the 1980s (painted initially in strokes so broad as to approach caricature), awakens from her death swoon to find herself in an all-female limbo called the Kitchen--so named because, as in marriage, it's where women who think they're going to heaven often wind up instead. To earn points toward paradise, Berni must work a Cinderella miracle for Nellie, an unappreciated young woman living in Colorado at the turn of the century. After bungling her first attempts at fairy-godmothering at arm's length, Berni comes down to earth, directly meddling in Nellie's affairs with greater success. Deveraux's characterizations are, to put it mildly, sketchy: Nellie is almost too good--and certainly too dumb--to be true, while her wicked sister Terel is so self-centered, petty and cruel as to hardly be believable. In the end, of course, love conquers all: Nellie gets her man and Berni her chance to move on to the next level of purgatory. Deveraux fans will find her treading familiar ground with verve if little subtlety. One million first printing. (Nov.)