I began reading Sandra Brown’s ENVY without having read the blurb or knowing anything about it. The book came to me with the recommendation, “Read this, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a while.” With that kind of recommendation, who wouldn’t pick up a copy?

Because of how I read the book, I didn’t know that the prologue was actually a submission of an unsolicited manuscript that was being read by Maris Matherly Reed, a renowned New York book editor. I read the prologue as if it were part of the main plot and not a subplot. I would have been happy reading that book—Roark and Todd’s story of intrigue and betrayal. Brown, however, didn’t keep the plot that simple.  ENVY is a complicated weaving of two present day plots and the manuscript.

Noah Reed—novelist, Matherly Press editor, and Maris’s husband—is plotting to sell Matherly Press out from under his wife and father-in-law. Parker Evans—the rude, wheelchair bound author of Envy—is plotting more than a book when he entices Maris to his estate on a tiny island off the coast of Georgia. Daniel Matherly may seem to be losing grip on his company, but the CEO of Matherly Press still has several cards up his sleeves. Maris is tangled in all these webs and wrapped up in the chapters of the manuscript Evans dolls out.

I don’t want to tell you too many specifics of this beautifully written, complicated book and spoiling something. Let me just say that ENVY is a fabulous read. Brown is a master at weaving all the diverse strands into one seamless garment.

I’ve read a lot of good books recently, and ENVY ranks with the best of them.