title: August Heat: A Novel
author:  Beth Lordan 
description: In this precisely rendered, lyrical first novel, nature is a dominant character, and human behavior is as rhythmic and inevitable as the change of seasons. At the beginning, a 60-ish widow, Rachel Wilcox, returns to her childhood home in a small rural community; at the end, a storm and flash flood sweep the town. Both events disturb the equilibrium of the townspeople. Rachel plans to sell the old family house and place her mad brother, Jacob, in a sanitarium near her city home. But she underestimates the old house's effect on Jacob and his mythic importance to the community. Jacob alone sees below life's surface to profound truths. Lordan's cadenced prose carries the reader through the story as a river carries a raft, inexorably and suspensefully. "All up and down River Street at just this moment, people peer at one another secretly and believe what they see, but, like the density of the heat and the days-old thrum of heat thunder, their vision is a deep distortion, outlines and textures false." Though Lordan romanticizes the essential cruelty of madness, her remarkably accomplished prose, laced with precise sensory and pastoral details, makes this novel both compelling and convincing. <br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Winter's Heat by Denise Domning
  
  Her time in a nunnery had taught Lady Rowena many things, but not how to be a
  wife to the powerful Lord who claimed her as his bride. Meeting him on their
  wedding day, her blue eyes defiantly locked with his, she vowed never to
  submit to this aloof, mysterious knight whose courtly charm barely concealed
  his ruthlessness.
  
  His vast estates -- and his bed -- lacking a Lady, Rannulf, Lord of Graistan,
  knew this convent-raised beauty brought a dowry he couldn't refuse. But the
  heat ignited by her touch reminded him that he had been a woman's fool once
  and would never be again. After one night of sweet consummation, he planned to
  coldly leave her and ride off to war, ignoring the desire that turned his
  blood to flame...
  
  But a tide of treachery was rising around them, mortal danger awaited them ...
  and their only hope lay in daring to trust, to cherish, and to love
  unconditionally.
  
  "DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, ROWENA, YOU RAISE SUCH PASSIONS IN ME