cover image Escapade

Escapade

Susan Kyle. Warner Books, $4.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-446-36271-9

Amanda Todd wants two things: Josh Lawson's love and control of the family firm, a combination of weekly newspaper and job press in San Antonio. Josh, executor of Amanda's father's will, makes things tough on both counts. He won't marry Amanda because he has what he sees as a serious medical problem (although he isn't above a bit of sexual teasing), and he won't help her stop Ward Johnson, the press's manager, from running it into the ground. Amanda skirts both Josh and Ward, determinedly systematizing and beefing up the job press business by working directly with employees. Ward's management abilities deteriorate further when he and employee Dora Jackson begin an adulterous affair. Amanda tells Josh they should fire Dora to ``get the problem off our property,'' a comment so blatantly sexist that one wonders if a male writer would dare attempt it these days. Meanwhile Dora feels ``too tainted'' to go to church. Facile moral judgments such as these are more attention-getting than Kyle's ( True Colors ) flat characters and a mediocre plot that drags despite being punctuated with melodramatic crises. (Dec.)