Kissing Comfort

In 1870 San Francisco, foundling Comfort Elizabeth Kennedy is mortified when her childhood friend, shipping magnate Bram DeLong, announces that they are engaged, but she plays along when he promises they can break it off soon. The sham engagement sets off a cascade of events ensnaring Comfort's affable banker uncles, Bram's imperious mother, and his older brother, Bode, whose decades-old passion for Comfort ignites as blackmailers, kidnappers, and a menacing figure from Comfort's shadowy past close in. While bestseller Goodman (Never Love a Lawman) struggles to free her narrative from a weighty beginning and a several overly convoluted plot threads, and cameos by a freed slave and a Chinese maid are unfortunately caricatured, the cast of likeable, articulate characters%E2%80%94including the complicated, independent, and altogether impressive heroine%E2%80%94makes this an entertaining and sizzling offering for lovers of Gilded Age pageantry. (Sept.)