In Hot Water

I would give this 4 1/2 stars as a romance of star crossed lovers working their way back to one another. The additional plot complications create stumbling blocks along the way, but do not develop into a real suspense storyline. If this were a Sandra Brown novel, the main character's much older, prescription drug addicted surgeon husband would have been mired in an underworld syndicate marking his wife Maci and his son Holt whom she truly loves for death. Instead, husband Seymour is just an arrogant drug addict who let a patient bleed to death on the operating table while he was high on drugs. His estranged son Holt, a high powered attorney currently living on his sail boat, is summoned to represent him when he is charged with murder. Holt just happens to be the man that Maci made passionate love to on the beach in Jamaica where she was on holiday with girlfriends two weeks prior to her marriage. Of course then they were known to each other only as "Stan" and "Mildred" and never saw each other again until now. Holt hates his father as he blames him for his mother's suicide several years ago. This sideline is never developed. There is great chemistry between Holt and Maci. Their romance was enough to keep me interested to the very end.

Maci Malone goes on vacation to Jamaica where she meets a hunk. The pair shares an incredible night of passionate lovemaking. Though neither expects a morning after, "Stan" and "Mildred" desire this to happen. However, there was none as both know they should have not indulged though they could not stop. They separately left for their respective home destinations never expecting to see one another again. Not long afterward, Maci agrees to marry Dr. Seymour Ramsey who offers her security something she needs in life. Life is good and Maci gives birth to a child Jonah. However, the illusion of stability shatters when her spouse is sued for malpractice and charged with manslaughter for the wrongful death of a patient due to the abusive influence of prescription drugs. Seymour asks his estranged adult son Holt to serve as his legal council. However, Maci is stunned because Holt is the hunk in Jamaica who took her to ecstasy and may be the biological father of her son. Maci is a likable protagonist who feels her world collapse with the charges against her husband and then further implodes when Holt arrives. Unlike the harassed lead female character, the two males are not amiable as Holt is nasty and Seymour pathetic. Still this is a fine contemporary soap opera even if coincidence generates the triangular tension. Harriet Klausner