Private Affairs

Honor, love and corruption provide the themes for the new novel by the husband/wife team who wrote the popular Deceptions and Possessions. On their wedding day, Elizabeth and Matt Lovell are forced to ""temporarily'' shelve their bright dreams of a future in journalism and take over a family business in Santa Fe. Sixteen years later, with two teenagers and a house to support, the Lovells gamble their assets on revitalizing a failing weekly paper. Elizabeth pours her considerable talent into writing a column, ``Private Affairs,'' but Matt's seething ambition is stymied until Keegan Rourke, a wealthy businessman, gives him the helm of a multimillion dollar newspaper chain. Reveling in the view at the top, Matt refuses to see that his integrity is threatened by Rourke's control of the political agenda, and Elizabeth's outspoken distaste for Rourke drives a wedge between them. As his wife's fame snowballs (her column now has national syndication) Matt succumbs to a fast-lane lifestyle, and their relationship crumbles. Curiously flat descriptions of the good life and padded dialogue slow the action, though glitz-and-greed fans may find enough to interest them as the scenes shift from Santa Fe to Houston, L.A. and the ubiquitous hot tubs of Aspen. Doubleday Book Club main selection; Literary Guild alternate. March