The Enchantment

Emmaline Amanda Hatter (the ``Mad Hatter of Wall Street'') and Dr. sp ok/pk Larence Digby are damaged goods. Both were orphaned young; the former was thrown on her own devices, which she parlayed into a vast fortune on Wall Street, while the latter, tormented by a crippled ankle and memories of an unsympathetic grandmother, became a fanciful professor at Columbia University. In 1893, the two meet in New York City when Emmaline funds Larence's pk expedition to the lost Aztec city of Cibola. They eventually become intimate when Emmaline is wiped out by the Wall Street crash and follows Larence to New Mexico in an attempt to get her money back or at the very least to insure her percentage of the expedition's spoils. Hannah ( A Handful of Heaven ) offers witty banter in the first half of the book; later, however, she resorts to broadcasting revelations that would be better left implied. As they draw closer to the magical Cibola, with its equally magical tubers and guardians, Larence and Emmaline learn that it's `` okay to be afraid ,''stet itals to `` laugh ,'' to be `` together ,'' to trust, love, etc. If you wanted to know what would happen if Carlos Castaneda and Melody Beattie collaborated on a romance, here's your chance. (Aug.)