cover image Looking for a Hero

Looking for a Hero

Patti Berg. Avon Books, $5.99 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-380-79555-0

Berg's (If I Can't Have You) time-travel romance takes readers from the high seas of 1702 to present-day St. Augustine. As pirate Black Heart clashes swords with his nemesis, Thomas Low, a broken mast throws him overboard and onto a Florida beach in 1998. In the ruins of what was once his island hideaway, the buff buccaneer spies widow Kate Cameron and her cute daughter, Casey, who loves to tell pirate stories. Black Heart (ne Morgan Farrell) is really a sweetie under his black eye patch; he longs for a wife and kids, just as Kate longs to have more children. A little too dull-witted to make a decent heroine, Kate fights the standard losing battle between head and heart, along with other body parts; Morgan doesn't particularly want to go back to a lonely 18th-century ship, even if staying means not taking his vengeance against Low. Fortunately, Low has also time-traveled to St. Augustine, and the pair finishes the duel. Readers will be thankful for this continued fight, for here Berg has created a twosome more exciting than Morgan and Kate. (Dec.)