Star

Giana Van Cleve, the heroine, has fallen in love with a vicious fortune hunter. Her mother, the renowned shipowner and builder Aurora Van Cleve, is desperate to save her daughter. She agrees to support Giana’s wedding if Giana agrees first to spend an unusual three months in Rome with her Uncle Daniele. But Giana’s uncle takes this bargain far beyond what Aurora ever imagined. Thus, Giana first sees Alex Saxton not in a society drawing room, but in a brothel.

This is the story of Delaney Saxton, a man who struck it rich in the California gold rush of 1849 and stayed to build a great city, and Chauncey FitzHugh, an heiress from England who travels to San Francisco to avenge her father. She believes Delaney Saxton ruined him and plans to destroy Saxton in the same way he destroyed her father - leaving him betrayed and penniless. But her prey isn’t what she expected. He is charming, too handsome for his own good, rich - and elusive as a wisp of smoke.

There are men and then there are MEN, and then there’s Brent Hammond, a gambler who’s handsome as sin, distrustful as only a betrayed man can be, and wilder than an unbroken stallion. When he meets Byrony by chance in San Diego, he can’t help himself - he’s charmed - until he sees her again in San Francisco as the petted wife of an older rich man. All his distrust and cynicism come out, and he treats her very badly indeed. He fights as only a man can who’s willing to do anything to keep himself protected.

Jade Star, the final novel of the Star series, first appeared in May 1987. Saint Morris has always been my favorite character among all the wonderful San Francisco men. He is fascinating, honorable, and sexy - the perfect hero. Saint first meets Juliana DuPres on the island of Maui when he is a very young doctor, just landed off a whaler, and she is the 13-year-old daughter of an impossibly puritanical minister. When he leaves Maui he takes the girl’s heart with him. When Saint sees Juliana again it is six years later and she is being sold in a slave auction in San Francisco....