cover image When Lightning Strikes

When Lightning Strikes

Rexanne Becnel. Dell Publishing Company, $5.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-440-21568-4

A tall, dark and dangerous hero; a courageous and determined heroine; and a tightly constructed, absorbing plot are some of the pleasures of Becnel's (Where Magic Dwells) latest romance. Her story opens in 1855 in St. Joseph, Mo., where Abigail Bliss and her father are preparing to leave with one of the scores of wagon trains heading west. Abby, distressed by her father's sudden decision to sell their house and move to Oregon, and bewildered by his insistence that they adopt a false surname, figures out quickly that something is wrong. But neither she nor her father is aware that their convoy has been joined by two men who are searching for her--Tanner McKnight, a bounty hunter hired to find Abby and take her to her grandfather in Chicago, and Cracker O'Hara, an assassin who has been hired to kill her. Tanner succeeds in kidnapping a furious Abby and, during their perilous journey back to Missouri, he fights to protect her from O'Hara and to protect himself from his growing love for her. Becnel has skillfully blended romance and adventure in a seamless narrative enriched by a well-researched and vividly realized historical background. (Mar.)