Secrets

This bodice-ripper, set in turn-of-the-century America, has all the subtlety of a cartoon. Regina Shelton, whose daddy is an English earl, is traveling by train through central California on an extended holiday from which she'll return home to marry a man of her father's choice. Masked bandits intrude; one clearly has his eye on more than Regina's pearls. What's a virginal aristocrat to do? She hurls herself from the speeding train, winding up in the dust with a case of amnesia, a new identity and powerful sexual longings for her rescuer, one Slade Delanza, heir apparent to a financially troubled rancho. Slade is boorish and temperamental, but his body stirs the delicate Regina. ``He was not really a big man, but every inch of him was sculpted muscle,'' rhapsodizes author Joyce ( Violet Fire ) just before Slade removes Regina's rain-drenched corset. Slade's treatment of Regina is atrocious, but the poor guy is troubled by memories of his older half-brother, a mother who abandoned him and a scheming father whose approval he desperately seeks. At novel's end, Regina not only stands by her man, but also gives him her inheritance. Go figure. (Apr.)