Happy Endings

Quinn's insightful and dramatic follow-up to Regrets Only is an addictive Washington, D.C.-based soap opera with bestseller potential. Sadie Grey, the vulnerable and manipulative widow of U.S. President Rosey Grey, tells handsome journalist Desmond Shaw--with whom she spent many a stolen White House moment--that he, not Rosey, fathered her young son. Des, however, plans to marry old love Allison Sterling, a competitive newswoman just appointed to a prominent post at a heretofore male-dominated daily paper. While the sticky paternity matter remains unresolved, Allison masterfully quashes chauvinism in the workplace and learns she is pregnant; Sadie teaches lovable-but-tacky new First Lady Blanche Osgood the dos and don'ts of politicking and falls for an AIDS researcher/physician whose Jewish faith and wife prove to be stumbling blocks. Quinn dexterously pens passionate interludes, verbal sparring matches and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the White House and the newsroom, although the abundant crises and lovelorn soliloquies here may prove too maudlin for more discriminating tastes. Literary Guild main selection. (Nov.)