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Living on a remote island under an assumed name, novelist Parker Evans guards his secrets well. Fascinated by this reclusive genius, publisher Maris Matherly-Reed decides to pursue him. But this new project threatens an old commitment, a commitment at the very center of her life. Envy has all the ingredients of a Sandra Brown beach read bestseller.

Publishers Weekly

Style and form are usually the least of prolific bestselling romance/thriller writer Brown's concerns, but in her latest effort she takes on an unusual challenge, setting out to craft a novel within a novel within a novel. The onion begins to peel when editor Maris Matherly-Reed plucks a prologue from the slush pile and finds herself hooked by the steamy prose. The author has furthermore titillated her by breaking the rules: no SASE, no cover letter. Maris knows only that his initials are P.M.E. and he lives on St. Anne Island in Georgia. (How does she know P.M.E. is a man? She... knows.) Gutsy, idealistic, deliciously sexy, Maris is married to philandering sociopath Noah Reed, who runs Matherly Press with Maris and her father, Daniel, last of the silver-maned gentleman publishers. As for P(arker) M(ackensie) E(vans), he's a bitter, wheelchair-bound, first-time novelist or is he? Is he using Maris to avenge himself against Noah, or does he love her madly or can the answer be all of the above? Cutting back and forth between the ?bernovel and Parker's autobiographical novel about a purloined novel, Brown stages one dramatic scene after another. The narrative voices don't change much (although the typefaces do), but Brown's loyal legions frankly won't give a damn. Copyright 1999 CahnersBusiness Information.

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

With over 46 New York TimesThe Alibi) has few to envy among living authors, nor does the plot of Envy seem based on Brown's shortfall in literary esteem. Her heroine, Maris Matherly-Reed, who heads a highly literary independent publishing house, receives in her slush pile a prologue to a novel she can't refuse. The novel Envy. And as Maris's pursuit of the slippery author speeds on, we are given additional chapters of Envy as they are being written by Parker Evans, a Georgia island recluse, secretly the bestselling author Mackensie Roone. As it happens, Maris has married Noah Reed, the one-book author of the celebrated The Vanquished, a book actually written and completed by Parker whom Noah let drown at sea. Or so Noah thought. Now Parker tells the true story of Noah's attempted murder, sucking in Maris chapter by chapter when she comes down to Parker's lonely island to urge him on. Harmless bedtime stimulant. Not The Aspern Papers.