Wild Orchids 
By Jude Deveraux

     Nobody mixes romance with a dash of the supernatural, a pinch of humor and tragedy, and makes it all larger than life, gritty and cozy at the same time like Jude Deveraux does. When successful writer Ford Newcombe’s beloved wife Pat dies his world falls apart. After six years of chronic writer’s block and solitude, along comes sassy Jackie Maxwell with a story to tell. It concerns a woman who was romanced by the Devil, and was killed by the people who knew her in a horrible way. Jackie’s life has been full of secrets that she wishes to understand properly, and Ford needs a new assistant and a new novel. Their partnership will take them on a strange road together, one that will lead to both of them gaining knowledge of their own pasts.

      Here is a book bursting with story; Ford’s redneck family, the Devil in Cole Creek, love and acceptance, atonement and ambition. It’s a love story on many levels and about more than one kind of love, an imaginative tale of the supernatural and a slice of rural America showing more than one of its faces from more than one viewpoint. In short, you get a lot more than a romantic novel with this book, and if you like your books packed with incident, descriptions, relationships and warm humor then this one is for you. At times there almost seems as though there is too much going on, and it feels at times as though there are two books in here vying with each other - until the end makes everything plain. Many of Jude Deveraux’s earlier novels were part of a long set, but this is a standalone so if you are yet to sample her unique storytelling talent then this is probably a good place to start. Highly recommended; probably ought to be available on prescription or something…