"Darkly, erotic thriller, sheer magic!"

Anne Stuart has carved out her own niche with dark, erotic thrillers that leave you breathless. Frankly, I am surprised she does not get more of a spotlight for her works for she is one of the best in the field. Her stories are sensual, involving books that you cannot put down. The males are deadly, arrogant, and often have been outside of the law, simply because they are a law unto themselves. It is truly amazing how she can write for two series lines for Harlequin and yet give us equally winning historicals and these sexy, skin-soaked-with- sweat mysteries. Even more surprising is how she can create these irredeemable bad boys time and again, and not fall into stereotypes. Anne's bad boys do not come from a mold.

SHADOWS AT SUNSET gives us another obsessively driven, alpha/gamma male who will let nothing stand in his way to achieving what he has set out to do, and a heroine who will win your heart and make you care. Jilly Meyers lives in the flamingo pink La Casa de Sombras, the House of Shadows, a crumbling Hollywood mansion that reeks of an era gone, of the glitz and glamour decadence that mesmerized the world with the Silver Screen stars who lived larger-than-life flamboyant lifestyles on screen and off. The pink stucco is fading; the legends of the idols have faded as well. Yet Jilly hangs on trying to make a life for herself and help save her sister and brother. And though modern day, a tinge of that self-destructive streak of Hollywood past seem rooted in both of Jilly's siblings. Rachel-Ann, her sister, is argumentative, in- your-face willful, and bent on throwing her life away with booze, drugs, and sexual addiction. Jilly's brother Dean is a young man struggling with his own sexuality and nearly crippled by his need for approval from Jackson Meyers, their father. (A son-father compulsion for no one else would want his approval!) Jackson makes Joan Crawford look like June Clever! He is an amoral tomcat, stab-you-in- the-back corporate raider who has run afoul of the Feds. To him, family devotion is just another commodity to use, abuse, or trade away to his advantage. And the old pink mansion is Jilly's last bastion against Jackson's careless grinding of his family.

Into the mix, Jackson tosses his lawyer/pit bull, Coltrane. While the situation of the Feds is hot, he assigns his right hand to keep the residents of the manor out of trouble and out of the public eye. However, Coltrane has his own agenda that will see not only Jackson, but Jilly's house of cards, destroyed. Coltrane blames Jackson for the death of his mother years ago, and has come to take his pound of flesh first from Jilly and then Jackson. But as Coltrane is drawn into the middle of Jilly's dysfunctional family, against his will his role begins to change, and so does the form of his revenge.

Despite Jilly's resentment of her father forcing her to accept Coltrane into their home and their lives, she is falling under his erotic spell. She is nearly torn apart with jealousy, and driven to protect her sister as Coltrane seems to stalk Jilly one minute and her sister the next with deadly sensual pursuit.

But these troubled inhabitants are not the only residents of the House of Shadows, for Jilly is little aware that the ghosts of Brenda de Lorillard and Ted Hughes, the glamorous Hollywood screen who idols died there still haunt the manor. An apparent murder-suicide, their mysterious deaths give the manor its sinister, almost doomed ambiance. However, the unsolved riddle of their deaths is now rising to push everyone's lives to a stunning confrontation.

Coltraine is as deadly as a cobra bent on revenge, but again Stuart does what few writers can and all wish they could, give him that spark of believable humanity that could save him through his love of Jilly.

Stuart gives you such vivid, erotic imagery, forceful leads, and just as strong secondary romance between Rachael and Ricco, the man who would save Rachael from her spiral of self-destruction. The tension is palpable; it gets under your skin like a hot summer night and will keep you glued to the very end. This one takes is place up there with Stuart's masterpieces MOONRISE, NIGHTFALL and RITUAL SINS.

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Posted April 6, 2003