Morning Song

An innocent Mississippi wildflower in the early bloom of womanhood, headstrong Jessie Lindsay will do anything to thwart the charming, enigmatic fortune hunter who has come to wed her widowed stepmother. But there is far more to Stuart Edwards than Jessie first imagines. And in the heat of a blistering Southern summer, the handsome riverboat gambler will awaken feelings she has never known — and share with her his dangerous secrets — as reckless, undeniable desire propels them both toward scandal, possible ruin...and impossible love.

Hot-tempered Jessica Lindsey had nothing but disdain for fortune-hunting James Edward who had wooed and wed her widowed stepmother. But when James decides to get rid of her by cleaning her up and marrying her off, he discovers an auburn-haired beauty and completely loses his heart. And Jessica is suddenly faced with an irresistible attraction to a man she has sworn to hate. Reissue.

An innocent Mississippi wildflower in the early bloom of womanhood, headstrong Jessie Lindsay will do anything to thwart the charming, enigmatic fortune hunter who has come to wed her widowed stepmother. But there is far more to Stuart Edwards than Jessie first imagines. And in the heat of a blistering Southern summer, the handsome riverboat gambler will awaken feelings she has never known — and share with her his dangerous secrets — as reckless, undeniable desire propels them both toward scandal, possible ruin...and impossible love.

Publishers Weekly

Robards (Tiger's Eye) here transposes the tale of Cinderella to a cotton plantation in the antebellum South. Wicked, sexy Celia is cruel to Jessie, the spirited, late-blooming daughter of her deceased husband. The unlikely prince is Clive, a former riverboat gambler who marries Celia to gain control of her property. It is he who sees past Jessie's self-hatred to her inner beauty and who summons her deepest longings. Robards so effectively entangles the trio in plot complications that, ultimately, she must introduce a murder in order to clear a path for her so-called happy ending. Despite Robards's pains to legitimate the ardor between a young woman and her stepmother's husband, the unsavoriness of this theme is aggravated by protracted descriptions of Clive's drunken defloration of Jessie and his subsequent attempts to teach her the art of lovemaking. (Jan.)

Karen Robards is the bestselling author of twenty-seven novels. The winner of six Silver Pen awards for favorite romance novelist, as well as numerous other awards, she lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband, Doug, and their sons Peter, Christopher, and Jack. She says, "I read, I write, and I chase children. That’s my life."