cover image The Edge of Forever

The Edge of Forever

Nancy Kelley. Five Star (ME), $26.95 (247pp) ISBN 978-1-59414-578-0

A pack of disinherited relatives plot revenge after a young, redheaded nurse is named guardian of the 6-year-old Wilson family scion in Kelley's fast-moving, derivative fifth novel. Upon the death of the family matriarch, Jennifer Denton assumes control of the Wilsons family's sumptuous home in the Washington D.C. suburbs, which comes with British-accented butler Roberts and young, resentful tyke Johnny Kendall. An undercover State Department agent pursued by operatives for a foreign drug cartel, Johnny's presumed-dead father, widower Stuart Kendall, resurfaces in the Wilson kitchen after midnight, frightening Jennifer in her bedroom slippers. He inadvertently draws Jennifer and Johnny into the web of the cartel, where Jennifer soon shows her mettle. Jen and Stuart are pretty erotically-challenged, and the Wilson family shenanigans don't add up to much. But Kelley, a former math teacher and computer systems consultant for the Department of Defense, keeps pages turning with the cartel doings.