Pearl Cove

Review by Booklist Review

Romance author Lowell has once again given her readers a true gem with this, her third book featuring the Donovan clan (previous titles are Amber Beach, 1997, and Jade Island, 1998). Archer, the oldest son, is plunged into the past with a call for help from the only woman he has ever loved, Hannah McGarry, his half-brother Len's wife. After an injury paralyzes Len, he focuses on developing a unique strain of black pearls and mentally torturing his wife. When a cyclone hits their Australian pearl farm, Hannah finds her husband dead and the pearls missing. Archer comes to protect her and avenge Len's death. Greed and political intrigue lead them on a dangerous trek from Australia to Hong Kong to Seattle. It seems anyone could be involved: from farm employees to government operatives to Chinese gangs. Everyone wants either the pearls or Hannah, whom they believe knows how to create them. While trying to keep Hannah alive, Archer must deal with his attraction to her and the comparisons she constantly makes between him and Len. With the specter of Len hanging over them, it is difficult for Hannah to trust her attraction to Archer. This is a riveting mix of suspense and romance, sure to increase Lowell's popularity. --Patty Engelmann

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Formulaic but fun, Lowell's latest romantic suspense novel returns to the glamorous Donovan family she created in Amber Beach and Jade Island. When wheelchair-bound pearl harvester Len McGarry turns up dead on an Australian beach with an oyster shell sticking out of his chest, his beautiful widow, Hannah, knows that Len was murdered for his $3 million rainbow pearl necklace, the Black Trinity, now missing. Feeling herself in danger, Hannah seeks help from Len's partner and half-brother, the ruthless but hunky Archer Donovan. Archer fell for Hannah 10 years ago, when she was Len's teenage bride, and he's only too happy to help her track down both Len's killer and the necklace. Archer uses his family's resources, his inside knowledge of the pearl trade and his U.S. government connections to find the (rather predictable) bad guys. True love turns out to be harder to locate. As soon as they fall into bed, Archer knows he wants Hannah to have his baby. But Len was a cruel, unworthy husband, and Hannah, still recovering from her marriage, has trouble committing to Archer. Lowell uses the double search as backdrop for the push-and-pull between a reticent heroine and an oddly insistent, "elementally masculine" hero. Neither her plotting nor her airy prose take the romance genre anywhere new. Lowell does, however, infuse the minutiae of pearl diving and of international gem sales into a racy light read. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

More love and intrigue with the Donovans of Amber Beach fame. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In her third steamy romance about the gem-dealing Donovans (Amber Beach, 1997, etc.), Lowell joins Nora Roberts in the celebration of lusty heroes with large, loving families. Archer, the eldest of the Donovans, is a pearl lover and former government operative. Though he has forsaken the terrible loneliness of trouble-shooting for 'Uncle' and gone to work in the mineral import-export business of his family, he hasn't forgotten his deadly skills or lost his hair-trigger reflexes. Which is all to the good when Hannah McGarry, the widow of his half-brother Len, involves him in the search for a priceless set of pearls that has become implicated variously in the shadowy interests of the Chinese, Australian, and US governments. After Len is murdered at his Australian pearl farm, Hannah sends for Archer because her own life is in danger. Len, it seems, was a ruthless, obsessed fellow who had developed a priceless black pearl, and now the major pearl interests believe that Hannah knows its secret formula, though in truth Len never told her any part of his culturing methods. A bitter paraplegic, he merely exploited her genius for sorting pearls and withheld his love. Hannah now makes the mistake of believing that Archer is the same species of ruthless tough guy that Len was. While Archer can be as ruthless as he has to be, underneath those hard muscles and behind that hairy chest, he's just a love-hungry teddy bear who has always had the hots for Hannah. As Lowell interweaves Hannah and Archer's romantic tussle with a virtual handbook of pearl culturing, buying, history, and lore, Archer sneaks the voluptuous Hannah out of Australia and back to the protection of his family home in Seattle. Supported by the Donovans, the pair vanquish the bad guys along with all the barriers to marriage and babies. Strong, interesting, and sexy characters'and, happily for lovers of romance and priceless jewels, there are still three Donovan siblings to go. ($150,000 ad/promo)

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Pearl Cove Like grains of sand grinding inside the oyster, Like pearls being formed from the grains; Still waiting, though in unbearable patience Still believing, though almost in disbelief. -Zhou Liangpei Seattle, Washington November Archer Donovan wasn′t easily surprised. It was a hangover from his previous line of work when surprised men often ended up dead. Yet the unique, peacock-and-rainbow radiance of the teardrop black pearl Teddy Yamagata was holding out did more than surprise Archer. It shocked him. He hadn′t seen a black pearl with such colour for seven years. That particular pearl had been clutched in a dead man′s hand. Or nearly dead. Archer had fought his way through the riot in time to pull his half brother out of the mess and get him to a hospital in another, safer place. Long ago, far away, in another country. Thank God. Archer had done everything in his power to bury that part of his past. Years later he still was shovelling. But he had learned the hard way that no matter how determined he was, his previous undercover life had a nasty habit of popping up and casting shadows on his present civilian life. The proof of it was gleaming on the palm of Hawaii′s foremost pearl collector and trader. Teddy wasn′t in Hawaii now. He had flown to Seattle with a case full of special pearls to show Archer. The extraordinary black pearl was one of them. "Unusual colour," Archer said neutrally. Peering through the thick, blended lenses of his glasses, Teddy measured the expression of the man who was a sometime competitor in the pearl trade, an occasional client, and an invariably reliable appraiser. If Archer was particularly interested in the tear-shaped black pearl, nothing showed on his face. He could have been looking at a picture of Teddy′s grandchildren. "You must be a helluva poker player," Teddy said. "Are we playing. poker?" "You′ve got your game face on. At least I think you do. Hard to tell under all that fur." Absently Archer rubbed his hand against his cheek. He had given up shaving several months ago. He still wasn′t quite certain why. One morning he just had picked up his razor, looked at it as though it was a remnant of the Spanish Inquisition, and dropped the blade in the trash. The fact that it was six years to the day since he had quit working for Uncle Sam might have had something to do with it. Whatever, his beard had grown into a short black continuation of his short black hair. And if there were a few grey hairs among the black, tough. The dead didn′t age. Only the living did. "Must be hot when you go to Tahiti," Teddy said. "It′s always hot there. "I meant the beard." "I never sent it to Tahiti." Teddy abandoned subtlety and tried the in-your-face approach. "What do you think of the pearl?" "South Sea, maybe fourteen millimetres, teardrop, unblemished surface, fine orient." "Fine?" Teddy hooted. His black eyes nearly vanished into lines of laughter. "It′s goddamn spectacular and you know it! It′s like ... like . . ." "Molten rainbows under black ice." Teddy′s thin black eyebrows shot up and he pounced. "You do like it." Archer shrugged. "I like a lot of pearls. It′s a weakness of mine." "In my dreams you′re weak. What′s the pearl worth?" "Whatever you can get for it." Archer′s cool, graygreen glance stopped Teddy′s immediate protest. "What do you really want to know?" "What the damn thing′s worth," he said, exasperated. "You′re the best, most honest judge of pearls that I know." "Where did you get it?" "From a man who got it from a woman who got it from a man in Kowloon, who supposedly got it from someone in Tahiti. I′ve looked for that man for six months." Teddy shook his head emphatically. "He′s not there. But if you buy the pearl, I′ll give you the names. "Are there more?" "I was hoping you could tell me." "I′ll bet you were." Archer looked at the stainless steel space-age clock his father had brought back from Germany and placed in the front room of the series of suites that were the Donovan family residence in downtown Seattle. Two o′clock in Seattle. Wednesday afternoon. Autumn closing in on winter. Where the black pearl had come from, it was early morning. Thursday. Spring closing in on summer. What went wrong, Len? Archer asked silently. Why, after seven years, are you selling your unique Pearl Cove gems? He looked at the radiant black gem, but it had no answers for him except the one he already knew - seven years ago, his half brother, Len McGarry, had mixed the undercover life with one too many shady deals. It had nearly killed him. It had certainly maimed him. Archer was one of three people on earth who knew that Len had discovered the secret of how to culture extraordinary black pearls from Australia′s South Sea oysters. But Len had refused to sell even one of the thousands upon thousands of black gems Pearl Cove must have produced in seven years. Yet here was one of those gems: beautiful black ghost of the past. Part of Archer, the part that stubbornly refused to bow to bleak reality, whispered that maybe Teddy′s pearl was a sign that something had gone right, not wrong. Maybe Len was finally healing in his mind, if not his body. Maybe he was beginning to understand that no matter how many glorious South Sea pearls he hoarded, he was still the same man. Linked with the thought of Len came unwelcome memories of Hannah McGarry, Len′s once innocent, always alluring wife. Alluring to Archer, at least. Too much so. He had seen her only twice in ten years. He could recall each moment with brutal clarity. She was like the black pearl, unique. And like the pearl, she hadn′t the least idea of her own beauty, her own worth. When he had showed up with her broken, bleeding husband in his arms and told her she had two minutes to pack, she didn′t faint or argue. She simply grabbed blankets, medicine, and her purse. It had taken less than ninety seconds. Their flight out of hell had taken a lot longer... Pearl Cove . Copyright © by Elizabeth Lowell . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Pearl Cove by Elizabeth Lowell All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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