WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT WHITE DIAMONDS
RATED 4 1/2
"...shout hail, hail to Shirley Hailstock for a great story."
Ester Aronowitz, Affaire de Coeur
August 1996
Professor Sandra Rutledge is writing her PhD dissertation at her family’s remote getaway cabin in the Pocono Mountains. While driving on a snow mobile, she finds a badly injured man who turns out to be the missing Senator Wyatt Randolph. With a blizzard blanketing the area with snow and no other help available, Sandra struggles but manages to get he man inside the cabin. After consulting (by phone) with her medical doctor mother, she patches the unconscious man up, all the while wondering what he is doing here and why he is carrying a fortune in diamonds.
When Wyatt regains consciousness, he learns where he is and who he is with. She, in turn, learns very little about his activities that led to his possession of the gems (which are more than simple jewels) and his stab wounds. Wyatt does explain that he came here in the hope of meeting Sandra’s father, a fellow Senator, but fails to tell her that he fears her father has committed treason against the country.
To their mutual surprise, they find themselves very attracted to each other. As much as Wyatt wishes he’d met her under different circumstances, he cannot change the fact that he believes her father sold out his country. He knows that, if he lives long enough, he will destroy her father, and in all probability, their growing love for each other.
White Diamonds is a fast paced romantic suspense that entices readers to finish in one sitting. The lead characters are first class as their budding love struggles to overcome a very powerful outside challenge to its survival. The audience will shout hail, hail to Shirley Hailstock for a great story.
Action packed, this one gives a run for the money.
--JP, Rendezvous, July 1996
Sandra Rutledge, a widow and college student studying for finals at a family cabin in the mountains, is caught up in a scheme of espionage, treason, murder, and national security. Intelligence, FBI, and Washington D.C. cops are all after her. She doesn’t know who to trust, not even her own father, Senator Rutledge. Senator Wyatt Randolph has caused this mayhem in her life by showing up half-dead at her father’s cabin in the mountains after being missing for several days with fifteen diamonds in a pouch around his waist. Why is everyone after the diamonds? Will Sandra live long enough to find out? This one is a thrill a minute as Sandra runs for life seeking help and someone she can trust to help her. Action packed, this one gives a run for the money.
RATED 4 1/2 (Excellent)
Shirley Hailstock has once again raised the ordinary to extraordinary, the sublime to exquisite and bathed it in an exotic romantic fantasy.
Cheryl Ferguson, Romantic Times Magazine
August 1996
Senator Wyatt Rutledge is running for his life. His best friend has been killed and his legacy to Wyatt is a fortune in diamonds that are connected to a top-secret government operations. As he closes in on the man responsible for the contract on his life, Wyatt is stabbed and left for dead during a snowstorm.
When he awakens comfortable and warm, he realizes he’s been rescued by Senator Brad Rutledge’s daughter the daughter of the man he believes is behind his best friend’s murder and the so-far-unsuccessful attempts on his own life.
College professor and PhD candidate Sandra Rutledge’s plans for quiet study time in her family’s mountain cabin are obliterated when she finds Senator Wyatt Randolph possibly bleeding to death. She takes him back to her cabin, never dreaming her Good Samaritan rescue would trap her in a web of intrigue, danger, revelations about her own family that could destroy them all...and a love so consuming, so passionate it will shake the foundations of her neatly ordered world.
Shirley Hailstock has once again raised the ordinary to extraordinary, the sublime to exquisite and bathed it in an exotic romantic fantasy.
...a delectable blend of romance and intrigue that will give readers a rush they will not soon forget.
Beth Penney, Gothic Journal
August/September 1996
Widowed Sandra Rutledge, a 32 year old math professor at Rutgers, is working alone at her parents’ Pocono Mountains cabin when a man suffering from a knife would appears in her driveway. She recognizes him as junior senator Wyatt Randolph.
Ministering to a wounded senator in her driveway is not quite as strange as it may sound in this case; Sandra’s father Brad is also a senator, and her mother is a famous heart surgeon. Sandra stitches Wyatt up, but she is full of questions. Why is he in the mountains? Why was he stabbed? Why does he have what appears to be millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds strapped in a money belt around his waist?
Sandra is soon forced to choose between Wyatt and her father. Her anguish at having to choose between the two men she loves is very real.
White Diamonds is a nonstop political thriller, loaded with everything from car chases to international intrigue to crooked higher-ups in the White House. Author Shirley Hailstock has deftly balanced this actionwith a genuine romance that grows steadily between Sandra and Wyatt. The sexual tension between the two fills the book, complementing the other drama perfectly. Sex scenes are carefully placed so that they do not overwhelm either the characters or the reader.
A strong supporting cast includes Sandra’s estranged supermodel sister Annie, and her photographer/lover Jordon; Chip, a former professor of Sandra’s who holds the key to the mystery; Sam, helpful Pentagon employee who risks his job for his belief in Wyatt; and the First Lady and President. The Commander-in-Chief is incongruously named Everett Horton, conjuring initial images of the befuddled character actor of the 1930s and 1940s of nearly the same name, but this man is definitely decisive.
DC takes on a gritty Grishamesque reality in this novel, from the supposed sanctuary of the Oval Office to the rundown motels Sandra and Wyatt hid in. Character description is not always so thorough. Sandra and her sister are described as being dark skinned, but there is no description of their father or even really, of Wyatt, except that he is brown-eyed and extremely handsome. The story itself contains no racial elements, making the characters simply people, whatever their racial heritage, rather than symbols.
A tantalizing Rutledge family mystery dovetails well with the intrigue and suspense keeping the reader at seat’s edge throughout the story.
There are no gothic elements whatsoever in this tale the story is too high tech! However, it is a delectable blend of romance and intrigue that will give readers a rush they will not soon forget.
This is a book that will give you chills as it seems so plausible, but you won’t be able to put it down until you finish. I definitely recommend it for a quiet weekend.
Beverly Silverfoote, Book Rack
July/August 1996
From the moment that Sandra Rutledge discovers Junior Senator Wyatt Randolph unconscious and bleeding on the road to her parents’ Pocono Mountain cabin, this novel of espionage, murder and romance will keep you wondering whom you should trust.
Why is Senator Randolph carrying fifteen latge, uncut diamonds, and what secret do the diamonds hold? Why has the senator been missing for a week, and who had tried to kill him?
Why is Sandra able to contact her father, the senior senator from New Jersey? Why is her father’s secretary being so mysterious? Who is shooting at Sandra and Wyatt as they escape off the mountain, and where can they hide?
The suspense builds as Sandra and Wyatt are barely able to keep ahead of their pursuers, as well as the FBI. Everyone from the president on down becomes a suspect.
This is a book that will give you chills as it seems so plausible, but you won’t be able to put it down until you finish. I definitely recommend it for a quiet weekend.
White Diamonds takes romantic suspense to the next level!
--Annette Carney, Literary Times, 1997
When Ph.D. candidate Sandra Rutledge holes up in her parents' isolated Pocono Mountain cabin, all she plans to do is study for her upcoming oral exams. That is until she finds a handsome stranger bleeding to death in the snow. She drags him back to the cabin, and with help over the telephone from her mother, a world-renowned heart surgeon, Sandra administers first aid. Then she realizes the wounded man is Senator Wyatt Randolph who's name has been plastered all over the news for days. It turns out the senator came to the cabin looking for Sandra's father, the most powerful African American politician in the country, and head of the Senate Defense Committee. But why Wyatt showed up on their doorstep nearly dead from a stab wound and carrying millions of dollars worth of diamonds, Sandra can't understand. When Wyatt wakes up, he is disappointed to learn Senator Rutledge is not at the cabin. And he can hardly tell Senator Rutledge's daughter the truth, that Wyatt suspects the senator of stealing defense secrets and selling them to the highest bidder. And even worse, he suspects the Senator ordered the death of Wyatt's best friend as part of a cover-up. But Wyatt knows he has to get Sandra out of the cabin before the hired thugs who murdered his best friend and tried to kill him break in. And he's going to have to tell Sandra the truth about her father, even if she doesn't believe him, and even if it means destroying the growing attraction between them. Chased out of the cabin by the determined killers, Wyatt and Sandra embark on a wild chase through the halls of government, including the White House itself. Along the way, both learn how to trust. But trust can be a deadly game. One confidence in the wrong ear and both of them could be dead.While Ms. Hailstock has crafted a tale chock full of action and suspense, I wish the characters had been more complex and the mystery a bit less predictable. Shirley Hailstock knows how to plot real page-turners! White Diamonds is a quick read, full of suspense, action, and lots of glitz and glamour! Ms. Hailstock has a talent for hooking a reader! She writes for anyone longing for lots of action and suspense along with their romance! White Diamonds takes romantic suspense to the next level!
Annette Carney -- Copyright © 1994-97 Literary Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
