NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Over 20 years ago, the protagonist of romance writer Samuel's scrappy hardcover debut left high school and rode far from her Colorado home on the back of a musician's motorcycle. Now, at the age of 40, Jewel Sabatino lives in New York and has a gay best friend dying of AIDS, rancid memories of a nonmarriage to a nonstarter, a teen musician son, an estrangement from her father (with whom she "had not exchanged a single word in twenty-three years") and an unrelieved case of low self-esteem. When she learns, almost simultaneously, that she's inherited her great-aunt's house and that her apartment building in Greenwich Village is going condo, Sabatino knows it's time to go home. She, 17-year-old son Shane and ill best friend Michael Shaunnessey head for her third-generation Italian-American enclave in Pueblo, Colo. There she comes to terms with who she is, helped considerably by Malachi Shaunnessey, a "big, alligator-blood-drinking tough guy" who shows up to ease his dying brother Michael's last days, bringing more than just comfort to Jewel in the process. The sense of place is vivid, the secondary characters charming and many of Jewel's thoughts about her various and often conflicting roles and loyalties are all too recognizable and full of self-deprecating humor. But having established a high-concept situation, Samuel (Night of Fire, The Black Angel) leaves little room for surprises, and of the four main characters only Shane is allowed to display spontaneity. (Feb. 4)