In the Midnight Rain

On a quest both professional and personal, biographer Ellie Connor accepts the invitation of experimental botanist and music lover Laurence "Blue" Reynard and heads for Pine Bend, TX, to gather information on an obscure Thirties blues singer and, if she can, learn something about her unknown father. However, her search nets her far more than she expects, and Ellie is suddenly faced with a surprising family, the answer to a mysterious disappearance, and a love she never hoped to find. Compelling, complex protagonists, three-dimensional secondary characters, and a simmering sexual tension result in an intense, poignant, and beautifully rendered romance that is also filled with rural small- town ambiance and threaded with descriptions so vivid that the seductive sounds of the blues and the sultry heat of a Southern summer almost rise from the pages. Wind (Rio Grande Wedding), who also writes as Barbara Samuel, is a RITA Award-winning author and lives in the Southwest.