cover image The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter

The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter

Mary Ellen Dennis, Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99 mass market (512p) ISBN 978-1-4022-4631-9

Themes of reincarnation and redemption elevate Dennis's homage to Alfred Noyes's poem "The Highwayman." Feisty author Elizabeth "Bess" Wyndham is inexplicably attracted to highwayman John Randolph Remington. From the moment he picks up one of Elizabeth's books, Rand is haunted by the story's uncanny similarity to his disturbing recurring dreams. When they meet at a soirée, they realize their fates are forever entwined. But Bess is under pressure to marry wealthy and sinister local lawman Lord Walter Stafford, who holds the fate of her father's inn in his hands, and as John persists in his dangerous ways, Stafford becomes increasingly determined to catch and hang him. Though slightly contrived and predictable at times, this entertaining 18th-century romp retains much of the romance of its source material while giving John and Bess a considerably happier ending. (Apr.)