cover image Star Keeper

Star Keeper

Patricia Potter. Bantam Books, $5.99 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-553-57881-2

This nicely detailed Revolutionary War historical picks up with the next generation of the family featured in Potter's StarFinder. Injured while fleeing his sinking ship, anti-British John Patrick Sutherland, known as the Star Rider, must seek medical help from his half-brother, Noel Marsh, a doctor in Philadelphia. Noel doesn't share his brother's rebel sympathies and only helps reluctantly, getting him a bed in a local loyalist hospital run by Annette Carey. Sutherland is immediately taken with Annette and tries to hide his true identity. Annette uncovers his secret and contemplates turning him over to the British but doesn't because he's the first man to whom she has been attracted in years. Amid gun battles and raging seas, the two fall in love. Their romance is interrupted by the ongoing conflict, and Sutherland must risk his life to help free Noel from prison. In an unsurprising conclusion, love conquers all, and Sutherland brings both his brother and his beloved around to his side. (Aug.)