cover image The Wildest Heart

The Wildest Heart

Rosemary Rogers. Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99 (713pp) ISBN 978-1-4022-2274-0

In Rogers's unpolished latest, Rowena Dangerfield, raised in India by her grandfather, goes on a globe-trotting quest for a staggering fortune. The plot takes Rowena from India to London and New Mexico, where she must claim an unlikely inheritance. As she reads the diaries of the father she never knew, Rowena discovers that she is supposed to make peace between two embittered families, and as independent as she thinks she is, she's still not prepared for the web of love, intrigue and violence that fills the frontier. Unfortunately, Rowena comes across as clinically detached instead of headstrong, and nearly every encounter she has with a man (even the ""good"" ones) reads like an assault. The plot, meanwhile, moves in fits and starts, and many pages are eaten up with atrocious dialogue (""Listen, you stubborn, bad-natured female! When are you going to realize I want you?""). If you read only one doorstop romance this summer, don't make it this one.