Wishes

Deveraux's ( A Knight in Shining Armor ) latest romance is a slight but amusing fantasy . Berni, a selfish woman of the 1980s (painted initially in strokes so broad as to approach caricature), awakens from her death swoon to find herself in an all-female limbo called the Kitchen--so named because, as in marriage, it's where women who think they're going to heaven often wind up instead. To earn points toward paradise, Berni must work a Cinderella miracle for Nellie, an unappreciated young woman living in Colorado at the turn of the century. After bungling her first attempts at fairy-godmothering at arm's length, Berni comes down to earth, directly meddling in Nellie's affairs with greater success. Deveraux's characterizations are, to put it mildly, sketchy: Nellie is almost too good--and certainly too dumb--to be true, while her wicked sister Terel is so self-centered, petty and cruel as to hardly be believable. In the end, of course, love conquers all: Nellie gets her man and Berni her chance to move on to the next level of purgatory. Deveraux fans will find her treading familiar ground with verve if little subtlety. One million first printing. (Nov.)