Salting Roses

Marinello's debut attempts, with minimal success, to marry a suspense plot to Southern fried wit. As an infant, Gracie Lynne Calloway's mother left her on her uncle's doorstep in Shady Grove, Ala. She grows up to be an outspoken tomboy with a killer pitching arm, a foul mouth, and a deep love for her sleepy hometown, but on her 25th birthday, private investigator Sam Fontana shows up with the news that Gracie was actually kidnapped from a wealthy Connecticut family and stands to inherit $650 million. Gracie wants nothing to do with the money, aware that it will only complicate the life she loves, and she's proven right once paparazzi and greedy relatives descend. Then there's the matter of handsome yankee Sam, who Gracie is undeniably attracted to. Though the tiresome trope of the headstrong tomboy waiting to be tamed by the right man is mitigated somewhat by Gracie's quick wit, the typecast supporting characters—meddlesome aunt, wise uncle, sassy friend—do little to distinguish this from the magnolia-scented pack. (Dec.)