Sleeping With The Enemy

This third novel by the author of An Accomplished Woman (1978) is a transparently commercial blend of romance and suspense, but there is tension in the plot; and the prose, except when Price lapses into romantic sentimentality, is crisp and evocative. The heroine, Sara Burney, is a battered wife who escapes from her horrible husband, Martin, by jumping into Long Island Sound during a night sail. Presumed drowned, a disguished Sara travels to Iowa to begin a new life as Laura Pray. Immediately she meets Ben Woodward, the handsome and single university professor who lives next door, but Sara, fearing that Martin will track her down and kill them both, is reluctant to become involved. Waiting for Martin to show up provides suspense, and chapters written from Martin's point of view show him coming ever closer. There is an anonymous young man who begins to leave love notes and flowers on Sara's doorknob - a not very artful contrivance necessary for Price's climatic ending. But Sara's overriding concern is for her blind mother, alone in a nursing home. How can Sara visit her, and keep the visit a secret from Martin? It is the one place he knows that she will go. And so she does, disguised as a young man, and Martin is there, disguised as well. Preceded by a suspense-filled scene at a state fair, the story moves quickly to its much-awaited climax, and a final appallingly gushy scene between Ben and Sara. Price, attempting to add depth to the story, has Sara, a well-read librarian, engage in numerous literary conversations that by the end seem strained and artificial. But the suspense is real enough, and the characters, though predictable, are treated with compassion. (Kirkus Reviews)