Moving Target

Elizabeth Lowell

Language: English

Published: Mar 17, 2009

Pages: 482
ABC: 14

Description:

The troubling message from Serena Charters's late grandmother appears in a package containing four pages of a centuries-old illuminated manuscript -- a strange inheritance that hides many secrets...and has already cost many lives. Seeking answers, Serena turns to Erik North of Rarities Unlimited, a reclusive manuscript appraiser with a passion for the past. Without warning, they are thrust together into the center of a lethal firestorm that rages between two worlds -- one long dead, yet living on in an ancient text, the other chillingly alive and fraught with peril. In the blink of an eye, Serena and Erik have become targets of an unseen and determined stalker as they get closer to shocking revelations about Serena's legacy, the cold murder of an eccentric old woman in the heat of the Mojave Desert...and just how far a remorseless killer is willing to go. And now their only slim hope of survival is to keep moving. ** ### From Library Journal When Serena inherits some rare pages from the mysterious Book of the Learned, she discovers that someone is willing to kill to keep their secrets under wraps. Of course, this being a novel by a doyenne of romantic suspense, Serena also gets involved with the man set to appraise her valuable inheritance. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### From Booklist Lowell leaves behind her best-selling Donovan clan (although they do make a cameo appearance) and introduces a fresh cast of characters in her latest romantic-suspense tale. Serena Charters, a weaver by profession, was raised in an isolated, primitive stone cabin in the desert outside of Palm Springs by her seemingly paranoid grandmother. When her grandmother dies a violent death, Serena inherits an ancient scarf and beautiful illuminated pages from a medieval manuscript. An accompanying note cryptically refers to their source, the *Book of Learned*, which, it suggests, will be her heritage if she wishes to search for it. When Serena decides to have the pages appraised, the ninetysomething patriarch of the House of Warrick, an auction house akin to Sothebys, insults her, proclaims the pages to be fakes, and then offers her $1 million. Deciding to get a second opinion, she meets Erik North, a local manuscript expert who, it turns out, has also been searching for the *Book of Learned*. Even though both she and Erik have had dreams about the medieval couple described in the book, Serena keeps her distance, unable to trust men as a result of her traumatic past. Undaunted, Erik comes to her rescue when he realizes that their quest has unleashed the same evil that drove her grandmother into hiding. Nothing is quite as it seems in this intricate story, which is as finely woven as the wondrous scarf Serena inherits, granting Lowell fans everything they want and have come to expect from her enormously popular romances. *Patty Engelmann* *Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*