The Stepmother

By Diana Diamond

Book Overview

Sixty-five-year-old multi-millionaire Steven Armstrong tells his three children that he is going to re-marry. But his new bride isn't the stepmother they have in mind. Charlene "Charlie" Hendricks is his vivacious, thirty-five-year-old personal trainer, the single-mother of a teen-age daughter. To Steven's midlife children, she is nothing but a gold digger Days before her wedding, Charlie, training for a triathlon, decides to go for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean. Out of nowhere, a mysterious figure on a speeding Jet Ski shows up, making an attempt on her life. The children head the list of suspects--but which one plotted her death? Then, after the wedding, a second attack backfires and mistakenly kills her husband, making Charlie a wealthy heiress. Now it is the children who accuse her of murdering their father. Is Charlie a ruthless fortune hunter, or the innocent victim of her husband's greedy heirs?"

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312939442
• ISBN13: 9780312939441
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 375 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.1" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

strong amateur sleuth thriller

In Florida, wealthy sixty-five years old Steven Armstrong underwent knee replacement surgery and subsequent therapy. He soon falls in love with his physical therapist thirty-three years old Charlene "Charlie" Hendricks, who raises a young teen Tara by herself. He informs his son Matthew, who replaced him on the board of Ucandoit, a chain of hardware warehouses that he plans to ask Charlie to marry him. Matthew tells his two siblings; Hollywood actor Gary and art show sponsor Trish. Realizing marrying a kind older man would help her daughter, Charlie accepts. However, someone is unhappy with her marrying the self made millionaire and tries to kill Charlie, but fails. A second attempt ends tragically with Steven dead and the police suspecting the new rich widow. She is unable to sit idly by while suspecting one of her step children is trying to kill her. To save herself, Charlie investigates the homicide assuming that she was the target not Steven in spite of evidence to the contrary. Though the title seems like a poor B movie and the premise seems unlikely that at least one of the adult professional children would turn to murder, readers will appreciate this strong amateur sleuth thriller that grips fans with surprising twists. The story line is fast-paced from the first attempt to kill Charlie and never slows down until the final twist that will stun the audience. The key to this diamond of a tale is that like Charlie readers will believe one of Steven's children is the killer, but which one makes for a fine tale. Harriet Klausner