The Present in Texas and Maine

In her mid-twenties, Skye Barclay overhears a conversation that has life-altering results. She's adopted! Her parents forbid her to look for her birth mother; her fiancé does the same. For once in her life, Skye rebels and hires a private detective who learns her mother gave her up at sixteen, later married and had two children. An automobile accident ten years ago wiped out three of the family, but one survived. Skye has a brother in Texas! Skye takes a leave from her accounting job to go to Texas. Attorney Wayne Bigelow threatens to break their engagement if she leaves. An easy decision!

Skye receives a warm welcome at the Lorren Oaks Ranch, home of Dr. Justin Madaris, his wife, Lorren, and their three children, one of whom is their sixteen-year-old son Vincent, whom they adopted nine years ago. Skye finds the Madarises a far cry from her own repressed, controlling parents. Justin and Lorren welcome her into the family and openly -- and lovingly -- acknowledge her as Vincent's sister. Vincent himself is thrilled and sees a resemblance between Skye and the mother he remembers, which thoroughly delights Skye.

One more person is visiting the ranch, a cousin, architect Slade Madaris from Houston. He opened the door to Skye and fell in love. Not that he recognizes it as real love yet, even though he is well aware of the truism that Madaris men fall in love at first sight of the one. Unlike his twin brother Blade, Slade hasn't made much time for women while they built up their construction company, but that will change now that he's met Skye.

Skye returns to Maine, and, much to the consternation of her parents and Wayne -- who acts as though he didn't break off with her -- takes a leave of absence to spend the summer in Texas.

The Madaris family is a large, extended, close-knit one, and they all open their hearts to Skye; as Vincent's sister, she is one of them. Skye tries to focus on Vincent, but can't help falling for Slade. Her days, and nights, are happy ones, but someone badly wants her to return to Maine and marry Wayne, no matter what needs to be done to make it so.

Ms. Jackson has written a dozen novels featuring the Madaris family and their friends. (In fact, her first, over a decade ago, featured Justin and Lorren; this is Ms. Jackson's fiftieth work.) Don't worry about keeping them straight. There is a Madaris family tree at the front of the book and also smaller ones of their friends. The Madarises are an important presence in Texas, headed by matriarch Felicia Laverne Lee Madaris who rules over her children, the "grands" and the "great-grands." In their charm and good looks, in their passions, their loyalties, and in their ferocity when one of their own is in danger, they remind me of Stephanie Lauren's Regency Cynster family. Does that seem strange? An African-American family in modern Texas and an aristocratic English one of the nineteenth century? The secret to the comparison is that Brenda Jackson writes of emotions common to all humanity. (Sure hope we hear more about brother Blade, the player, and cousin Luke, the rodeo cowboy.)

For an exciting novel with an extremely likable hero, a wounded heroine, and a supporting cast of good people, a few not so good ones, and a couple of villains, I recommend the enjoyable SLOW BURN.

Jane Bowers