cover image Texas Sunrise

Texas Sunrise

Fern Michaels. Ballantine Books, $19 (351pp) ISBN 978-0-345-36776-1

The final installment (after Texas Fury ) in Michaels's series about the Coleman clan and its aeronautics and fashion empires opens with family matriarch Billie Coleman Kingsley receiving bad medical news. Meanwhile, Billie's daughter Maggie is ruining her marriage with her total devotion to her husband; another daughter, embittered and weak Susan, searches desperately for love; Maggie's son, Cole, questions his ability to lead his father-in-law's business, while his sister Sawyer forces him to confront the ghosts that haunt him. Through such family crises as death, divorce, birth and tragic accidents, staged in locales ranging from Texas to Japan to Hawaii, the family members struggle to cope with Billie's impending death and to understand her lessons about family, power and love. Readers who are new to the series may have trouble understanding how the characters are linked and why they act as they do, but already indoctrinated fans will find that Michaels provides a satisfying, though somewhat perfunctory, sense of closure. ( Feb. )