In this uneven offering from seasoned romance author Rice (All a Woman Wants, etc.), cartoonist Jared McCloud longs for two months of peace and quiet so he can finish his animated screenplay. A remote seaside cottage in South Carolina seems the perfect place to kick his creative juices into gear, and it would have been if not for his eccentric landlady, Cleo Alyssum, whose own quest for privacy prompts her to arm the grounds around her house with live peacocks, fake skeletons and screaming sirens. Cleo has a good reason for wanting to keep a low profile; she's on probation for shoplifting, possession and substance abuse, and she needs to stay clean and sober in order to regain custody of her young son, Matty. The story heats up when a hurricane forces Cleo and Jared into the usual steamy romance, but takes a dark turn as the pair try to protect a couple of abused teens from their dysfunctional mother and her sexually deviant boyfriend. While all the ingredients for a good Southern novel are in place here (sex, violence, humor and ambience), wooly characterizations and a confusing, unexplained conclusion involving ancient human bones found on Cleo's property will leave the reader wondering how all these plot fragments connect. (Mar.)
