High Stakes

The first chapter begins eerily and that grabbed my attention from the beginning. I felt the terror Angelina Marlowe's biological and adopted parents experienced at being on the run for their lives, having no one they could turn to. When her parents are killed in a car explosion, the Marlowe's chauffeur and his wife substitute their dead baby daughter for Angelina in order to fool the evil consortium that's taken over Angelina's grandfather's billion dollar hi-tech company. They live a secretive life and when Angelina (Leah) is sixteen, she discovers the truth and is obsessed with bringing the men to justice, as well as claiming her birthright. She also happens to meet the hero, Hawk Bladehunter while he is in a knife fight. Though they never speak, they stay in each other's thoughts through the years. Years later, Angelina gets a job at the her grandfather's company as Hawk's assistant. He is now the Head of Research and Development and the instant he sees Angelina (Leah) he remembers her and how her innocence had touched him. He was definitely an alpha male, drop-dead handsome, confident, straight to the point, even a little arrogant, but I always got the sense that the heroine was the only woman who had ever haunted his senses. He's attracted to her and let's Angelina (Leah) know it. She feels the magnetism, too, but is determined to fight it. She has to find her grandfather and prove that she's the rightful heir. The story is set in the Southwest and I could almost smell the dust, feel the dry the air. I really liked the hero because being a Native American and living on the reservation shaped who he was. I felt Angelina's confusion as she struggled to stay on course on one hand and deal with her feelings for Hawk on the other, especially since he's the one she might have to protect herself from the most. My only disappointment was that the author didn't give a lot of detail about Hawk's background, though she did mention a grandfather who was a Shaman. Otherwise, it was a great read.

Describing this read as enjoyable is like saying Earl Grey tea is a good drink! As Francis Spillman said of Brandywhines' earlier musings: "She writes like we dream- short, colorful bursts of emotion speckled with grim blotches of dread against an ever twilight sky." Once I picked this book up I couldn't put it down. I even carried it into the

The last book that could hold my intrest was Christine. And that was when I was 16 years old. Now that I am 40 years old and have read High Stakes, I can't wait to read them all. I find myself searching book stores after book stores for Rebecca Brandewyne's books. Telling each and every store to make sure they get them in. High stakes was captivating and kept me on the edge of my seat. I just couldn't put it down. Not only was it the first book I had read in 24 years, I was done with it in 3 days. And searching for more.