cover image Happy Endings

Happy Endings

Katherine Stone. Zebra, $15.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8217-4646-2

Stone's latest (after Promises ) is another puffed-up category romance, this one revolving around three couples connected by business and blood. Though she's ``extraordinarily beautiful,'' top Hollywood lawyer Raven Winter has been looking for love in all the wrong beds--until she finally meets a nice guy, whom she hires as her gardener. What she doesn't know is that Nicholas Gault is really a hotel magnate; the flowers in his truck are for his ``hilltop estate in Bel Aire.'' Scars from a bitter divorce are the reason he chooses to protect his true identity, and hence his heart. Then there's reclusive romance writer Holly Elliott and Oscar-winning director Jason Cole. When Jason options Holly's bestselling romance novel, Raven handles the contracts and arranges for them to meet; later, Jason follows Holly to Alaska and learns her nightmarish family secret--a secret that has caused Holly's father, veterinarian Lawrence Elliott, to search for his daughter for 17 years. Lastly, there's the pairing of Lawrence and society queen Caroline Hawthorne, who meet during an oil-spill cleanup. Stone knows how to write a complicated plot, but her troika-based story line backfires; with so many characters vying for the reader's attention, none stands out, particularly since they are all strictly one-dimensional. Only a soap-operatic quality gives this novel what modest life it possesses. (Aug.)