Deep in the Heart

A new dramatic saga featuring passion, secrets, betrayals and scandals-Texas style-allows Bickmore (Homecoming) to chart the vicissitudes endured by her ambitious heroine, Carly Anderson, as she moves from small-town poverty to social prominence and well-deserved riches. Carly and her voluptuous widowed mother move to Verity, Tex., when Carly is a teenager, but the community never accepts them, even when Carly dates local golden boy Boomer Bannerman, or when her mom marries the town's wealthy banker. The high school sweethearts drift apart after graduation, and come together again briefly in booming Houston in the 1970s when both are poised for meteoric success-Carly as a high-profile real estate broker and Boomer as a developer who populates the city skyline. After each marries into Houston's elite society, the couples become friends and partners. A decade later, their marriages and fortunes fail as the oil and real estate markets crash, and the Savings and Loans scandals rock the nation. Carly and Boomer return to Verity to start anew, together. Brickmore tells her story energetically, with a spirited evocation of the Texas landscape and a good-humored tolerance for her characters' foibles. (June)