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"Good beach book"

The gas explosion at the Fontaine sugar refinery will be the third major insurance claim in the past year from owner Jackson Fontaine and his family. Previously a fire almost destroyed the family Antebellum home and a cane harvester was stolen. Jackson is shaken and worried that he and his company will become uninsured as no one will take risks with his multi million dollar claims.

The Sugar Coalition sends insurance investigator Leanna Cargill to find out what is going on. Jackson catches her trespassing and threatens to have her locked up, albeit temporarily if she fails to cooperate and work with him. Knowing that he could put her away for a few days leaving her child with the parish, Leanna agrees. Very quickly the Yankee investigator and the southern CEO fall in love, but both are raising a child alone and each has a different agenda when it comes to the arson. Still the two adults and their two children gain a taste of what could be if everyone would take a chance on love.

The children's fears disarm the reader and the heroine is a tough charmer. However, Jackson comes across as Machiavelli, manipulating the investigation and his beloved to the point that readers will question why the independent feisty Leanna would want to live with him. Still readers will enjoy the final tale in the refined "Raising Cane" trilogy.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted May 26, 2003

Leanna Cargill is from up north—a damnyankee, as Southern folk say. But she's a steel magnolia if there ever was one—and she is determined to succeed at her new investigative job down south. All the more since a nasty divorce left her responsible for her little girl.

Jackson Fontaine maybe a Southern gentleman, but he is also a wheeler-dealer businessman and as strong willed as they come. He is not about to let his sugar plantation and refinery go under—he has a little girl to care for, too—because of any operational irregularities that Leanna Cargill may find.

Despite that, they like each other a lot. And when circumstances force Leanna to live at Bellefountaine, they both see how easily the four of them—Leanna and Jackson and their two girls—could make the arrangemnt a permanent one...