Trial by Fire

by Faye Morgan

Linda Redfield didn't stand a chance against prosecutor. Jefferson T. Langford. After all, she was just another public defender, a street-smart professional from the wrong side of the tracks who'd earned her law degree with hard work and determination -- not family money or connections. Langford had it all -- wealth, position, power -- everything Linda rebelled against.

But justice's scales tip, and Linda enters an uneasy alliance with her courtroom adversary -- as a partner in his law firm! Building a defense against Langford's charm and sensual appeal proves her toughest case by far -- especially since he seems to take such pleasure in overruling her objections... one by one...

181 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 1983

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doreen Malek Owens writing as Faye Morgan. The h and H are both lawyers working in the same firm. H is a silver-spooned blue blood Harvard grad who is the firm’s founding partner’s son, and is quasi-engaged to Miss Blonde Wasp of 1988. She is a young widow who had to expand sweat, blood and tears to achieve her career. He is supremely tacky for going after the heroine while he is dating a long-standing girlfriend and she is the biggest idiot in the world to let him use her like that, as a second-rate mistress. So dumb!

The first night they have sex, the next morning, she reads his engagement notice to Miss Wasp in the newspaper. He half-heartedly mutters it’s a “mistake” even though he confesses he and his girlfriend did “discuss” marriage recently. *eyeroll*. He continues to squire Miss Wasp around town even as he surreptitiously makes passes at heroine every chance he gets. She finally succumbs, again, the idjeet!

The second time they have a ONS at a hotel during a work trip, he leaves her the next morning for a date with Miss Wasp. This is after he woke her at 1am to go down to the hotel bar then left her at their table to do some dirty dancing with a random teenage slutbag. He is always acting so hurt and clueless when the heroine reacts adversely to his mixed signals. Although the signals weren’t that mixed after all, his treatment of her is how you treat a booty call, not a woman you love and respect!

The ending was totally implausible. He didn’t love his girlfriend and was just waiting for the heroine to tell him she loved him because he didn’t have the nerve to. Then an old biddy called him and told him the heroine had confessed her love for him. So he shows up on her doorstep on Christmas Eve like a bad Santa Claus and finally tells her ILY and proposes. Are you kidding me? I know the romance genre is steeped in fantasy but this is ludicrous.

[Sue Perkinson Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story