Desert Kiss/Besos En El Desierto: Besos En El Desierto

Diabetic geologist Patricia Vidal Martinez is surprised to find the guide hired to accompany her on a preliminary survey of Texas's Solitario Desert is the man she's spent 15 years forgetting, Daniel Rivera. The estranged couple vow to keep the three-week expedition ""strictly business,"" but their lost love is soon rekindled. Their reunion is cut short, however, when they discover the body of a Mexican woman and her baby, whom they rescue from an abandoned mine shaft. The lovers run into coyotes (""the human kind, who lead desperate immigrants to the U.S. and leave them to die if they get sick""), who, frightened of getting caught, destroy Pat's insulin in an attempt to drive them from the desert. The stakes are raised when Pat slips into a diabetic coma; Daniel must single-handedly disarm the attackers and get Pat medical attention before it's too late. Alvarez's descriptions of the stark environment throw the emotional intensity of the Latin lovers into high relief in her exciting debut romance. (Sept.) FYI: Desert Kiss is the first title in Kensington's new Encanto line of multicultural romances, each of which is printed in both Spanish and English.