cover image Jewels of Our Father

Jewels of Our Father

Kristy Daniels. Fawcett Books, $4.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-449-14579-1

The husband-and-wife team of Kristy Montee and Daniel Norman ( Hot Type ) offers an absorbing tale of the Bryant family members and the daily newspaper they own, the San Francisco Times , which binds them together while breeding bitter enmity among them. When Adam Bryant joined the Times in 1925, all he had was some reporting experience and a lot of ambition. That, however, and a judicious though loveless marriage to the owner's daughter Lilith Bickford brought him control of the paper. But when ``old man'' Bickford dies and Adam learns that the love of his youth, heiress Elizabeth Ingram, is a widow, he wrests a divorce from Lilith by threatening her with an ugly scandal. Elizabeth's millions can help Adam expand the paper into a chain but not guarantee its survival after his death. When he bequeaths the Times to his three children jointly, contention between them is inevitable: Lilith's son, Ian, is content to exploit it for quick money; Elizabeth's daughter, Kellen, will fight him to preserve Adam's empire from conversion into tabloids; and young Tyler, the illegitimate son, becomes a pawn in the struggle for power. (Jan.)