Wild orchids

Ford Newcombe grew up amongst his 11 uncles and their families, never really fitting in with his ne'er-do-well relatives. He met his wife, Pat, in college and she became his muse, helping him become a famous author. But after 21 years of marriage Pat dies, and Ford is at a loss, looking everywhere for the inspiration to begin writing again. He meets Jackie Maxwell, a young woman with a gift for storytelling, and she tells a doozy about a modern-day woman who is stoned because she was seen consorting with the devil. Ford wants to hire Jackie, but she is about to get married. Life has other plans, however, and Jackie ends up traveling with Ford to Cole Creek, North Carolina, the site of the stoning. Jackie recognizes the town, and she and Ford soon realize that she must have been there before, and perhaps witnessed the event. As in her last book, Forever [BKL O 15 02], Deveraux combines romance and the occult in a new and entertaining manner. Patty Engelmann

Forget garden-variety ghosts and poltergeists-the devil himself makes an appearance in bestseller Deveraux's latest romantic suspense novel. When famed mystery writer Ford Newcombe loses his beloved wife, Pat, he can't bear the thought of writing without her. Six years later, Ford is moving from one small town to another in an attempt to cure his writer's block when he hears the story of a woman who was murdered because she loved the devil. Fascinated by the tale, he decides that he must investigate it and approaches Jackie, the storyteller, to offer her the job of assisting him. Needing a change of pace, Jackie agrees to accompany him to Cole Creek, N.C., and strange things begin to happen when they arrive-Jackie instinctively knows her way around the town, she begins to have frightening premonitions that come true and the townspeople insist that the devil tale is just a rumor. Not one to give up, Ford continues to investigate and discovers an article about a 20-year-old murder. As he uncovers more gruesome details, he begins to suspect that Jackie may have somehow been involved in or witnessed the murder. Meanwhile, Jackie meets a man who seems too good to be true, who is also interested in the devil story. As Ford and Jackie work their way closer to the truth, it becomes clear that the story about the devil may be horrifically true. Deveraux's writing is sloppy ("I tried to pep Jackie up because she was looking as forlorn as an abandoned puppy"), but her plotting is effective, and she does a superb job of building up to her chilling conclusion. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

After Her Misspent Youth, bottom-rung journalist Lucinda Trout abandons New York for the heartland and a few epiphanies. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Who--or what--has been crushing people to death in small-town Cole Creek, North Carolina? An inqisitive mystery writer moves south to find out. Ford Newcombe made a fortune on his first book, thanks to his quick-witted wife, Pat, whose death from cancer afterward wasn't the first tragedy in her family. Her father had gone blind and her mother was killed by a drunk driver. Ford would sell his soul if he could rewrite the past . . . but he can't. A few years later, Jackie, a sexy young spitfire from the South, becomes his assistant. They have a lot in common: both grew up in poverty, and she spent some of her childhood in Cole Creek with her daddy, though she never knew her momma, who disappeared. As they swap stories, Jackie tells him the local legend of a woman's skeleton found under a stone wall, and Ford is intrigued. Pressing people under heaps of rocks was a centuries-old punishment for witches: Is there a devil in their midst? Are some of the inhabitants of Cole Creek able to speak to Old Scratch? And what does Jackie mean when she says she can "see" evil? Well, back to Jackie, as she runs into handsome stranger Russell Dunne, who hints that he knows something about the woman under the wall. But what could it be? Ford and Jackie discover that Abraham, patriarch of the Cole family, was crushed under a gravel truck. And Harriet Cole, killed in a car that careened down a mountain--and there are so many other strange deaths. So many subplots. Ford and Jackie seem to be falling in love, though the mysterious Russell Dunne is making eyes at her, too. And why is it that only she can see him? Standard-issue Deveraux (The Mulberry Tree, etc.): multiplying complications, confusing cast of thousands, and rambling storyline. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.