Heiress to a famous department store fortune, Meredith Bancroft chafes under the strict supervision of her interfering father. When she meets ambitious, handsome steelworker Matt Farrell, Meredith is ripe for the picking, and trouble brews on both sides of the tracks when she becomes pregnant at 18. Mcnaught's skillful treatment of Meredith, the self-styled ugly duckling and poor little rich girl, will pique readers' interest and engage their sympathy. This interest is sorely tested, however, as Meredith's relationship with Matt strains the imagination. Paradise is Mcnaught's hardcover debut, and romance fans of Danielle Steel and Janet Dailey who enjoy a stylish, improbable, fast-paced story will probably welcome Mcnaught to the ranks.-- Lydia Burruel Johnson, Mesa P.L., Ariz. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Two strong-willed characters maintain 11 years of unwarranted hostility based on a series of misunderstandings in this engaging romance, which was a BOMC main selection in cloth and spent 11 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A hard-cover debut from McNaught (sudsers like Almost Heaven and Kingdom of Dreams) links--in a contentious, sizzling-sheets romance--a Chicago department-store heiress/exec and a self-made corporate king. Between the first pash and the final nuptial flight, there're pages and pages of buzz about business and betrayals. Meredith Bancroft, only offspring of the ruthless president of Bancroft & Co., had pushed romance aside--all she wanted at 18 was to fill her father's male-chauvinist trotter-prints to head Bancroft. Then entered Matt Farrell, a lowly mechanic from rural Indiana: ``His features looked as if they had been chiselled out of rough granite.'' Meredith (with ``a nose that sculptors would envy'') was a mere pebble of fate, and there followed a volcanic coupling, a pregnancy, and marriage. But, alas, Meredith, back with furious Daddy, suffered a miscarriage...then waited in vain for Matt--who believed she'd had an abortion and who wanted a divorce. Eleven years later, Matt, having risen to heights at which he's interviewed by Barbara Walters and ``emanates raw, harsh power,'' and Meredith, still held from power by Dad, clash. There's a nasty surprise about the long-ago divorce, and Matt makes some surprising demands. Will they never blurt out their separate versions of what happened 11 years before? Yes, but as romance-readers know, that takes time--here filled with stony silences, the biting of lips, and awesome lapses into Love. There's also a good deal of corporate takeover talk (nothing strenuous), fancy clothes, food, and digs. If not absolute paradise for McNaught fans, at least a sunny easement to the beach--where this will be an inevitable summer companion. (Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for August.)