Private Pleasures (Hardcover)

I've just finished reading "Private Pleasures" by Joann Ross.

From Publishers Weekly

The struggles of a driven, appealing heroine shape this readable but formulaic novel. When young Cassie McBride begins working for the powerful Gallagher family, she hopes for a path away from her alcoholic mother and their poverty in Gallagher City, Okla. Miss Lillian Gallagher takes Cassie under her wing, teaching her about the art world and bringing her to auctions in Manhattan. But Cassie falls in love with the black sheep of the family, Roarke, and becomes pregnant with his baby. Thrown out of Gallagher City, Cassie escapes to New York, where she is rescued by Nina Grace, head of a modeling agency. Cassie becomes Jade, a famous model, but, fearing the wrath of the Gallagher clan, manages to hide her deaf daughter, Amy, from the world. Circumstances conspire to keep her and Roarke apart for 10 years, by which point she is a grieving widow and the wealthy owner of a San Francisco auction house specializing in Asian art.

From Library Journal
Pregnant, teenage Cassie finds herself destitute when her lover Roarke's father forces him to abandon her. She uses her beauty and a driving ambition to pull herself out of poverty and support her deaf daughter. When Roarke reenters her life several years later, she has been transformed into Jade, a top model. After his father manages to part them again, each marries someone else, but in spite of these unions, Jade's closely guarded secret, and even a murder, the lovers are eventually reunited.

From Kirkus Reviews

Second hardcover from the author of Secret Sins (1990): a contemporary romance that delves into worlds as disparate as auction houses, fashion modeling, and the particular problems of the deaf. Poor but gorgeous Cassie McBride is determined to get away from Gallagher City, Oklahoma, and her hard-drinking mother Belle. She lands a maid's job at the mansion of the town's richest oilman, Quinlan Gallagher. There, she learns to love fine Oriental antiques and dreams of one day presiding over an auction house. But antiques are not her only love: she falls fast and hard for the wealthy oilman's oldest son, Roarke. The two have a torrid affair, but it's broken up by the evil and powerful Quinlan, who has Cassie accused of theft and run out of town. She heads to New York, where she finds out she is pregnant, then is taken under the wing of Nina Grace, who owns a famous modeling agency. After the baby is born, Nina turns Cassie--now called Jade after her favorite stone--into a supermodel. Roarke finds her and tries to win her back, but Belle lets it slip that she and Quinlan were once lovers, so that Cassie and Roarke share a father. Cassie is horrified, particularly because her daughter was born deaf, a fact she's certain is due to her tainted parentage. But the ever-stoical Cassie, rejecting Roarke, throws herself into her work and eventually marries a wealthy older businessman, who sets her up in the auction business of which she's always dreamed. But the many lies she has told in order to protect herself and her child are unraveling; and when her husband Sam lies dying, he confronts her with what he has learned of her background. At the end, Belle's lies are exposed; Quinlan is dead; and the once poor little Okie is served her happiness on a silver platter.

Product Description

Cassie McBride has worked hard to become a famous model, but when the man who fathered her deaf daughter years before comes back into her life, she struggles with her feelings, and the man's ruthless father. By the author of Secret Sins.