Public Secrets

Product Description <br/>From Nora Roberts, the incomparable<br/>New York Times bestselling author of<br/>Sanctuary and<br/>Montana Sky, comes a mesmerizing story of a woman trapped by a dangerous desire and threatened by a murderous secret, one of Nora Roberts's most popular novels, now available for the first time in hardcover.<br/><br/>Emma.  Beautiful, intelligent, radiantly talented, she lives in a star-studded world of wealth and privilege.  But she is about to discover that fame is no protection at all when someone wants you dead....<br/><br/>All she has to do is close her eyes and she remembers the magical day her father came into her life.  She was a frightened, lonely toddler, hiding, always hiding, from her mother's wrath, when Brian McAvoy swept in and took her away.  She didn't know then that she was his illegitimate daughter or that she had just been rescued by pop music's rising new star.  All she knew was that suddenly she felt safe.<br/><br/>And there wasn't only Brian...his new wife became Emma's loving stepmother, his band members became her surrogate uncles, and soon Emma even had a new baby brother to care for.  Then just when everything seemed perfect, a horrifying event shattered all their lives: a botched kidnapping attempt, shocking the<br/>world, traumatizing Emma, leaving her bereft of her newfound happiness.<br/><br/>Yet now, after so many years of pain and guilt, of being overprotected and hounded by the press, Emma finally feels as if she's put the tragedy behind her.  A determined, self-sufficient young woman, she has carved out a thrilling career, and even dared to fall rapturously in love.  But the man who will become her husband isn't all that he seems.  And Emma is about to awaken to the chilling knowledge that the darkest secret of all is the one buried in her mind--a secret that someone may kill to keep.<br/><br/>With<br/>Public Secrets, Nora Roberts has woven an absorbing tale of a woman you can't help but care for, trapped in a terrifying web of suspense that will<br/>keep you reading long into the night.<br/><br/><br/><br/>From the Hardcover edition.<br/> Review <br/>"Move over, Sidney Sheldon: the world has a new master of romantic suspense, and her name is Nora Roberts."<br/>--Rex Reed<br/><br/>"Her stories have fueled the dreams of twenty-five million readers."<br/><br/>--Entertainment Weekly<br/><br/>An Alternate Selection of The Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club<br/> About the Author <br/>Nora Roberts is the first writer to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame.<br/>The New York Times bestselling author of such novels as<br/> Sacred Sins and<br/>Divine Evil<br/>, she has become one of today's most successful and best-loved writers. Nora Roberts lives with her family in Maryland.<br/><br/><br/><br/>From the Hardcover edition.<br/> Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. <br/>The first time Emma met her father, she was nearly three years old.  She knew what he looked like because her mother kept pictures of him, meticulously cut from newspapers and glossy magazines, on every surface in their cramped three-room flat.  Jane Palmer had a habit of carrying her daughter, Emma, from picture to picture hanging on the water-stained walls and sitting on the dusty scarred furniture and telling her of the glorious love affair that had bloomed between herself and Brian McAvoy, lead singer for the hot rock group, Devastation.  The more Jane drank, the greater that love became.<br/><br/>Emma understood only parts of what she was told.  She knew that the man in the pictures was important, that he and his band had played for the queen.  She had learned to recognize his voice when his songs came on the radio, or when her mother put one of the 45s she collected on the record player.<br/><br/>Emma liked his voice, and what she would learn later was called its faint Irish lilt.<br/><br/>Some of the neighbors tut-tutted about the poor little girl upstairs with a mother who had a fondness for the gin bottle and a vicious temper.  There were times they heard Jane's shrill curses and Emma's sobbing wails.  Their lips