Product Description: Chicago is burning
And Lucy Hathaway is running for her life. As she rushes past a fine hotel engulfed in flames, a wrapped bundle tumbles from a window into her arms. Seconds later the building crumbles--and Lucy is astonished to discover the swaddled blanket contains a baby.
Five years later Lucy walks into Rand Higgins's bank and knows: the orphan she rescued that day actually belongs to this ruthless financier. Now, to keep the child she's come to love, she'll have to give up her hard-won freedom and become his wife. But giving Rand her heart? That, she could never have expected...
Amazon.com Review: Setting: Chicago 1871
Sensuality: 7
In one catastrophic night, unconventional debutante Lucy Hathaway meets and propositions powerful banker Randolph Higgins, risks her life to save a baby girl, then loses her father and the family fortune in the chaos of the great Chicago fire. Five years later, she's older, wiser, and the proud owner of The Firebrand, a bookstore that caters to suffragettes and free thinkers. Fate throws her once again into the path of Randolph Higgins when she must apply to his bank for an extension on the loan that financed her bookstore. She discovers that Randolph is now a scarred, bitter, divorced man, and that he believes his daughter died in the fire. One glance at the photo on his desk tells her that Maggie, the child she saved and adopted that terrible night, is his lost daughter.
Lucy's strong sense of honor drives her to tell Randolph the truth. Now the conservative banker and the fiercely independent Lucy must deal with each other for Maggie's sake. Despite the resulting clash of wills and differing political views, the powerful attraction that drew them together five years earlier still exists. Can these two stubborn, opinionated people find a way to nurture a life together, for the sake of Maggie and their own battered hearts?
The Firebrand pits a strong heroine reluctant to abandon her independence against a hero grounded in traditional concepts of marriage and female roles. The rich details of life in 1870s Chicago, well-developed secondary characters, and the exploration of the women's suffrage movement all add up to making The Firebrand a rare treat. This third and final novel in Susan Wiggs's Chicago Fire trilogy will delight fans and new readers alike.--Lois Faye Dyer
