Satin and Steele

Veteran romancer Preston ( The Swansea Destiny ) first published this novel 11 years ago under the name Jaelyn Conlee, and it reads like a journeyman effort. Skye Anderson, widowed at age 19 in a car accident that also killed her unborn child, has spent the past five years burying herself in her work as personal secretary to Jonathan Hayes, the kindly head of a Dallas corporation. When dynamic young James Steele purchases the company, he threatens Skye's carefully preserved privacy with his forceful, almost menacing wooing. Skye thinks he seeks only another conquest, and even after she succumbs to his passion, she remains convinced that James will soon desert her. Although any tale of unexpected love achieved after tragedy and despair is likely to offer some satisfaction, the impact of this romance is limited by its superficial characterizations and cliched, overwrought narrative style, turgid with unfulfilled foreshadowings of doom. ( July )