Fireworks Over Toccoa - Hardcover

Television writer Stepakoff, author of Billion Dollar Kiss (2007), turns to fiction with a sweet, nostalgic tale set at the end of World War II. The daughter of a prominent family in Toccoa, Georgia, child bride Lily Davis Woodward hasn't seen her husband, Paul, since he was shipped off to war three years ago. She is now nervously anticipating his return, until she comes across a handsome stranger named Jake setting off fireworks in a lush field. The chemistry between them is explosive, and before long, Lily finds herself showing Jake the secret abandoned cabin where she goes to create her artwork and entering into a torrid affair with him. Lily is predictably torn between love and duty, and wrestles with her desire to be with Jake and her fear of upsetting her genteel parents and the husband she barely knows by running away with him. Pleasant if not groundbreaking, Stepakoff's fiction debut should appeal to readers who liked The Bridges of Madison County (1992) and other tearjerkers that celebrate forbidden but passionate love.