Love or Duty

June 10, 2013
In this straightforward psychological thriller from romance author Harris (A Brighter Dawn), painfully shy Maureen Flynn is still struggling, 16 years after the crime, with the memories of having been sexually assaulted by classmates in the small English town of Benbury. Flynn is surprised but pleased to receive a proposal from Philip Harmer, the professor for whom she works as an assistant, but is shattered when Harmer withdraws his marriage offer after learning of her rape. Full of uncontrollable rage, she forms the perfect plan for revenge, and when a Benbury High School teacher is found viciously stabbed to death, the police are, quite literally, clueless. When a newsagent is killed in precisely the same manner, the pressure increases on Det. Insp. Ruth Morgan and her partner, Det. Sgt. Paddy Hardcastle, who sense the two murders are connected. Despite bland characterizations and a strong reliance on coincidence, the story engages throughout. Agent: Caroline Sheldon, Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency (U.K.).

April 15, 2014
How far should a young woman go to take care of a child she accidentally hits with her car? Harris goes a long way to answer this question in her latest, after Stolen Moments (2013). In 1924 Liverpool, when Penny Forshaw sees a ball bounce in front of her windscreen, she is not quite fast enough on the brakes to avoid hitting seven-year-old Kelly Murphy, breaking the child's leg. What results is a tangled web of good and bad intentions. Penny feels responsible for Kelly, but Penny's parents and her fianc', Arnold, say that she owes the girl nothing. Nevertheless, she doggedly tries to provide for the working-class child, which eventually leads to Penny being ousted from her upper-class home and unofficially adopting Kelly. Even Arnold abandons Penny because he says she is ruining his social life. Sticking to her guns, Penny meets with Kelly's doctor, who champions Penny's harboring the child. Harris' fairy talelike historical novel pits the well-intentioned Penny and Dr. Cash against Penny's parents and fianc', and the law, sometimes creating outlandish situations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)