Melissa

The ties that bind us - to our families, to our pasts - are at the heart of this rich and engrossing novel. Musical prodigy Venus Arinelli saw her promising future as a classical pianist shattered when her father was charged with complicity in a terrible act of violence and died in jail. Now, at twenty-nine, Venus wears her survival skills like a suit of armor. And when a stranger emerges from her parents' long-ago past with an offer too good to refuse, all Venus's suspicions flare up.Military-trained Gib Cameron looks like a vice cop when he descends on the smoky Chicago bar where Venus and her sister are performing, but he is the representative of a family as distinguished, as rooted in American history, as Venus's is notorious and fly-by-night. Yet the Camerons need Venus, for reasons that have to do with reverence for the past, with loyalty, with an almost mystical bond that must be honored if they are to regain hope after their own recent tragedies.With the extraordinary mix of humor, pathos, sexiness, and pure storytelling virtuosity that made A Place to Call Home so beloved, When Venus Fell will capture listeners' hearts with the story of Venus's journey to Tennessee, to the Camerons' glorious mountain inn - whose very first guests were Venus's wildly in love parents - a journey that teaches two families what matters most.

Best-selling, Christy award-winning author's humorous romance - a 30-year-old single woman who draws up a list of the eligible bachelors in 1890's Texas.