cover image A Fire in Heaven

A Fire in Heaven

Annee Carter. Dell Publishing Company, $5.99 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-440-22297-2

The decimation of the circus troupe where Kira Scottney was a performer is followed immediately by a summons from the aristocratic English father who had abandoned her years before. Although she's sure that gentry life is not for her, Kira still can't resist her father's offer: one year of her life in return for her own circus. Kira isn't prepared for the countless deportment lessons, nor for her attraction to Damien Sharpe, who aside from being rude and arrogant, was accused of murdering his wife. Still, passion will out, so the two embark on a furtive love affair and an anxious search for the real killer. Carter (The Promise of Your Touch) has real descriptive skill, but it's not enough to make up for the cliched tortured hero, an improbably anachronistic heroine (a Regency environmentalist?), the rather obvious villain and the disconcerting leaps in the narrative that leave too many loose ends. (Mar.)