Monday, March 30, 2020

Jill Marie Landis’ HEART OF LIES – An Irish Girl in the Louisiana Bayou Finds Love

Set in New Orleans in 1875, this is the story of Maddie Grande, raised in a “tribe” of street urchins, taught to be thieves by Dexter Grande, the  man who reigned over them all. Maddie doesn’t recall a time before Grande and doesn’t know her real name or where she came from. Once on the streets, she now lives in the bayou with her twin tribe “brothers” where she has learned to fish and trap muskrats. She longs for another life but despairs of ever having enough money to escape.

When the twins kidnap the daughter of a wealthy man and force Maddie to hide the eight-year-old, involving Maddie in their crime, she thinks to return the girl and claim the reward, but Pinkerton agent Tom Abbott, sent to New Orleans to find a missing woman, begins to work the kidnapping case, too. He believes Maddie is one of the kidnappers. But now the child has escaped.

In a journey that takes them to Baton Rouge, a mutual attraction develops, but Tom and Maddie do not trust each other. She knows he wants to send her to prison and he thinks she is a consummate actress.

This is a well-told story that brings you into the bayou and then the streets of New Orleans. The tension between Maddie and Tom grows as both search for the lost child who has run away. But the child, an intelligent girl, sees their growing chemistry between the two and tells them they like each other. Penelope is a great character and adds much to the story.

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