Night Falls Like Silk

HarperTorch, 2005. Fine. Cassandra Westbrook and Thomas Brown Wolf have nothing and everything in co mmon. She's blond-on-pale; he's African-American, Lakota Sioux and "a littl e bit white." She's a rich widow with an elegant home, vibrant social life and successful Minneapolis art gallery; he's a loner who seems to live thro ugh the dark thoughts and derring-do of the characters in his comics and gr aphic novels. From the moment they meet at Sotheby's in Chicago, as the two high bidders for a folio of Native American ledger drawings, it's a dance of attraction and suspicion. Fans of Eagle's hardcover debut, The Night Rem embers, will have an advantage when it comes to untangling the hero's many personas: he's Thomas Warrior, Tommy T. or Tom, depending on who's in the r oom. But first-time readers will have the advantage when it comes to edge-o f-the-seat suspense involving Thomas's felon brother, Victor. And all will enjoy the nuanced portraits of Cassandra's adolescent nephew, Aaron, an art ist and loner, whose kidnapping drives the drama. Eagle, a white woman marr ied to a Lakota Sioux, enriches the romance genre with her unforced, unaffe cted multiculturalism. No doctrine, no rainbow parades here-just an appreci ation for all that is human.