~ Review: Secret Love ~

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Contemporary Romance

SECRET LOVE

Brenda Jackson

1-58314-073-5

BET/Arabesque

January 2000

(5) Melanie Schuster

PLOT SYNOPSIS: 

REVIEW: 

Déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would say.  I was just singing the praises of Brenda Jackson and now I get to do it again!  Lucky me and lucky readers—we get SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE with her novella TRULY EVERLASTING in December, and in January, we get SECRET LOVE, the long-awaited story of Jake Madaris of the fabulous Madaris family, and Diamond Swain, the gorgeous actress to whom he has been secretly married.  Was it worth the wait?  Oh my yes…yes, a thousand times yes.

Ms Jackson knows what her fans like and she never disappoints us.  We have been tantalized by appetizing bits of the story  of Jake Madaris and his Diamond.  Now we get to discover the whole story; how they met and fell in love, why they kept the marriage a secret for so long and why they decide to reveal it at last.   And it is a story worth telling, believe me!

Diamond Swain is one of the most likable heroines to come along in a while.  Sweet, smart, principled and gorgeous, I would love to hate her but she’s too darned nice.  And way too much woman for Jacob Madaris to resist.   Speaking of Jacob, he is definitely my favorite of all those gorgeous Madaris men—and that’s saying a lot when you think about that glorious family.  Ms Jackson’s descriptions of Jake made me literally lose my breath at some points, and I am an experienced reader of romance!  The man is hot, okay?

Together they make a story that is downright combustible.  It has all the elements that we have come to look for in a Brenda Jackson novel; good storytelling, a love of the family, an exquisite sense of place and delightfully sensual romance.  Let me emphasize that last, since Jake and Diamond are a profoundly intimate couple on all levels.  This book is fabulous, that’s all I can say. For all the readers who have patiently waited to know the whole story of their SECRET LOVE, your reward is here.  For all the readers who have never read a Brenda Jackson—although I don’t think there are any out there—this will be an introduction that you will never forget.

What a way to ring out the old and ring in the new!

2002