Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground: A Love Story

A contemporary romance that takes its name from a Willie Nelson song, this light and often engaging first novel is steeped in the country music business and the heroine's New York magazine world. Celebrity interviewer Tess Boone is driving in the Ozarks-her home turf-to Branson, Mo., a ``rustic little strip of hillbilly joints'' that has taken on the ``sprawl and glitz'' of a country music boomtown. Tess is on an assignment she turned down when it was first offered, and she has told no one in New York that her subject, Buck Campbell, a country superstar prized for his voice (``he could strum your heart chords'') and down-home charm, is Jamie, her former high-school beau and soulmate working under a stage name. Tess wants to pull off the interview-at which Buck's notorious wife/manager will be present-with as much detachment as she can muster, but, expectedly, one thing leads to another. Garrett lends substance to her destined duo through flashbacks: Jamie's mother left him, we learn, and a local preacher and his wife took over the boy's parenting; Tess's father desperately wanted her to have the education he never had. The story is awash in sentimentality, but Garrett tosses in a bit of dry wit and humor through her portrayal of a gushy photographer. Through winsome leads, crisp dialogue and a knack for evocative description, Garrett offers, if not an angelic first novel, at least one with wings. First serial to Good Housekeeping. (Feb.)