Heartbreaker
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Overview
While vacationing in Utah’s mountain wilderness, Lynn Nelson suddenly finds herself having to deal with her teenage daughter Rory’s raging hormones. The object of Rory’s passion is their guide, drop-dead gorgeous Jess Feldman, a man the divorced Lynn instinctively distrusts, even as she shields herself from his blazing baby blues. But after Lynn and Rory fall off a cliff of sheared rock, Jess becomes their only hope. Risking his life, he navigates them through the impenetrable forest thousands of feet below, unwittingly plunging them into a danger more menacing than they could have imagined. Exhausted and injured, all they have is one another—a terrified child, and a man and a woman who rediscover passion in each other’s arms—as they race against time for their lives.Synopsis
Nothing in anchorwoman Lynn Nelson's high-profile TV career prepared her for saddle sores, frayed tempers, or her teenage daughter Rory's raging hormones as they vacation in Utah's mountain wilderness. The object of Rory's passion is their guide, drop-dead-gorgeous Jess Feldman, a man the divorced Lynn instinctively distrusts, even as she shields herself from his blazing baby blues.
But in a terrifying moment when both Lynn and Rory fall off a cliff of sheared rock, Jess becomes their only hope. Risking his life to save them, he guides them through the impenetrable forest thousands of feet below, unwittingly plunging them into a danger more menacing than any of them could have imagined.
Exhausted and injured, all they have is each other—a terrified child, and a man and a woman who rediscover passion in each other's arms—as they race against time for their lives....
Publishers Weekly
When divorced Chicago anchorwoman Lynn Nelson, 35, signs on to chaperone high school students on a horseback riding vacation in the Utah mountains, she views it as an opportunity to bond with her increasingly estranged teenage daughter, Rory. In the prolific Robards's latest romantic tall tale (after Hunter's Moon), what Lynn doesn't count on, besides the bruising reality of actually riding horses, is finding love and stumbling on a plot to blow up the world. When Lynn meets hunky outfitter Jess, both immediately feel a strong antipathy that teeters perilously close to attraction. Matters take a melodramatic turn when an accident separates Lynn, Jess and Rory from their group and they happen upon a presumably deserted mining camp where they find themselves plunged into a nightmare. Confronted with a scene of mass murder, pursued by deadly religious cultists, they must depend on one another in order to survive-and to avert global catastrophe, for the cultists plan to detonate nuclear bombs and unleash chemical weapons throughout the world. Perils-of-Pauline chapter endings keep the pages turning, although clichd characterizations-Marlboro Man Jess, overachieving Lynn, annoying teen Rory-mar the whole. It's hard to accept that a contemporary career woman who exclaims "Rats! Curses!" when faced with a problem will play a pivotal role in averting Armageddon. But then, romantic suspense, not suspension of disbelief, has always been Robards's signature, and here, as before, she signs her tale with a flourish. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Jan.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
When divorced Chicago anchorwoman Lynn Nelson, 35, signs on to chaperone high school students on a horseback riding vacation in the Utah mountains, she views it as an opportunity to bond with her increasingly estranged teenage daughter, Rory. In the prolific Robards's latest romantic tall tale (after Hunter's Moon), what Lynn doesn't count on, besides the bruising reality of actually riding horses, is finding love and stumbling on a plot to blow up the world. When Lynn meets hunky outfitter Jess, both immediately feel a strong antipathy that teeters perilously close to attraction. Matters take a melodramatic turn when an accident separates Lynn, Jess and Rory from their group and they happen upon a presumably deserted mining camp where they find themselves plunged into a nightmare. Confronted with a scene of mass murder, pursued by deadly religious cultists, they must depend on one another in order to survive-and to avert global catastrophe, for the cultists plan to detonate nuclear bombs and unleash chemical weapons throughout the world. Perils-of-Pauline chapter endings keep the pages turning, although clichd characterizations-Marlboro Man Jess, overachieving Lynn, annoying teen Rory-mar the whole. It's hard to accept that a contemporary career woman who exclaims "Rats! Curses!" when faced with a problem will play a pivotal role in averting Armageddon. But then, romantic suspense, not suspension of disbelief, has always been Robards's signature, and here, as before, she signs her tale with a flourish. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Jan.)Library Journal
"How many more...heaving bosoms must readers endure?" groaned LJ's reviewer of Hunter's Moon (LJ 11/15/95). Not enough, if its appearance on national best sellers lists is any indication. A man and woman are separated from their cohorts during a wilderness trip, with predictable results.Kirkus Reviews
Lynn Nelson takes her teenage daughter on a wilderness vacation and winds up saving America from nuclear destruction.Veteran romancer Robards (Hunter's Moon, 1995, etc.) puts another thirtysomething couple through the adventure-and-sexual-tension wringer before they get to have hot, mutually fulfilling sex on a ledge in a pitch-black deserted mine—he with a bullet wound in his shoulder and she dressed in a battered Wonderbra and with no cigarettes (cold turkeying off nicotine, it seems, has become the newest ritual in tough-guy romance plots). To get closer to her rebellious daughter, Lynn, a single mother and Chicago anchorwoman, helps chaperon 19 teenage girls on a trip into Utah's Uinta National Forest, led by Owen Feldman and his brother Jess, "a tall, handsome, tawny-maned stranger in skintight jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat, whom she'd caught eyeing her legs before they even said hello." After suffering saddle sores, insect bites, and mother-daughter trauma, Lynn falls off a crumbling ledge, along with her daughter, Rory Elizabeth, and is saved by that utterly cool, competent, insolent cowboy. The three begin the trudge back to civilization, a difficult but not impossible hike. But then they discover a compound of cabins with a crucified man displayed out front and a field full of bodies nearby. Jess, it turns out, is a ex-ATF agent who was at Waco, and he has nightmares because he couldn't save all the innocent women and children. He, Lynn, and Rory use all their survival skills to escape the white-robed bad guys, members of a religious cult called the Healers, and then to detonate 12 computer-controlled bombs before the cult can initiate Armageddon.
Robards, whose white knights wear jeans instead of armor, knows the sexy grownup romance that's expected of her and always acquits herself well. It's a time-tested product, and she's a skilled producer.