cover image This Time for Keeps

This Time for Keeps

Kathleen Kane. St. Martin's Press, $5.99 (313pp) ISBN 978-0-312-96509-9

For Tracy Hill, it happens every time: every previous life has been cut short--usually in some ignominious way (most recently by a freak bowling accident) and usually ""because she was traipsing around after some man."" Fed up, Tracy bargains with the heavenly Resettlement Committee for a long life spared from love's complications. The committee has other plans. In a quantum leap, Tracy awakens as ranch owner Nora Wilding in 1875 Montana, and author Kane's (A Pocketful of Paradise) inventive romantic conflict spirals through vividly captured and revealing centuries-old (previous life) memories. Begrudging the backward time warp, Nora/Tracy flippantly addresses her foreman Seth Murdoch as Clint, Roy or Kemosabe until she realizes she must entice this honorable hunk or die a virgin--again. From there on it's a lively plot of all-out seduction with Kane's witty dialogue and fine portrayal of the head-strong, hot-to-trot heroine and the equally stubborn cowboy. (Apr.)