A SECRET BIRTHRIGHT – Olivia Gates
Harlequin Desire #2136
ISBN-13: 978-0-373-73149-7
January 2012
Contemporary Series Romance

New York – Present Day

In America, Sheikh Fareed Aal Zaafer is searching for his brother Hesham's lost family.  After a three year estrangement from their home in Jizaan, Hesham's last contact with Fareed was from a hospital bed in the United States , and Hesham's final words asked that Fareed take care of his wife, Lynn, and his baby.  And then Hesham died.

Fareed has given up finding the woman named Lynn and her child.  He has interviewed dozens of women, all imposters and gold diggers.  Fareed has had enough, he is going home.  A brilliant surgeon, a prince, and a gentleman, Fareed's skill in the operating room is the stuff of legend, but still he stays compassionate.  His job here at the teaching hospital in Los Angeles is finished, and his search for Hesham's family has come to naught.  He has patients awaiting him in his own country.  But now, his advisor, Emad, has brought him one last woman who asks for an audience before he departs.  Fareed is impatient, but as he watches her walk into the room he is stunned.

Gwen McNeal is as beautiful now as she was when he first met her.  Then, she was an energetic young researcher on the R&D team.  She was radiant then, and still is.  And she has asked to see him?

Gwen McNeal needs Fareed's help.  He is the only one who can save her child, and she only wants five minutes of his time.  She feels the energy between them just as it was then, and now, the air sparkles, but she must ignore her attraction and convince him to help.  Her child needs surgery, and Fareed is the only doctor on earth who has the skill to cure him.  Fareed agrees to her request, with one condition, she must return with him to Jizaan.  He will operate there and only there. Does she dare agree?  Jizaan is the last place Gwen wants to be.  It is dangerous to allow her attraction to Fareed to grow, but how can she refuse with the life of her child at stake?

A SECRET BIRTHRIGHT is a web of lies and mystery as Fareed and Gwen fight to save baby Ryan's life.  Fareed worries that Gwen has a husband, but she claims she does not.  This child is hers alone; there is no father in the picture. So, the only road block is the potent attraction between Gwen and Fareed.  Gwen fights to ignore it, and Fareed pushes for closeness.  But Gwen is afraid.  There are secrets that would devastate Fareed's world if he knows, and she must not allow that to happen.  The layers of the story unfold, and the end is dramatic and richly told.  A SECRET BIRTHRIGHT is a winner!

Diana Risso