A Hard Gemlike Flame: A Kavanagh Story IV

A Hard Gemlike Flame is an unblinking, on again, off again, adult love story that's alternately ecstatic and agonizing, angry and passionate. The two protagonists, Mick Kavanagh and Cathleen Murray, are equally troubled but for very different reasons. Both are held captive by their Irish heritage, Mick by genetic anger, Cathleen by what she always considered her frigid nature—until him. Their backgrounds, families, could not be more opposed. Mick was born into a poor bluecollar family, and he retains much of that overlay, despite the fact that for a time he is a university professor. Cathleen belongs to a wealthy family who owns a very high-powered advertising agency, in which she is the feared second in command to her father, ST Murray. Lacking a son, ST raised her as the boy he never had, with all the contradictions that implies. The stakes are large, with money, power and social standing on the line.Unable to find work in academe and quickly running out of resources, Mick becomes her assistant at the beginning of one summer. Their first meeting is more a collision of two highly intelligent alien forces than a job interview. The explosions continue, collision after collision. What Mick does not know is that Cathleen has a hidden agenda in which he will prove useful and then be discarded. What Cathleen does not know is just how promiscuous Mick has been. They both think they are incapable of love, and both are blind-sided by how quickly their troubled relationship turns into just that. Their backgrounds and mindsets are so divergent, that they can't seem to come to any sort of terms with each other—until they become lovers—but even then the incendiary scenes continue and intensify. Their interaction is alternately passionate, angry, pacific, understanding, ignorant. What binds them, saves them, is passion in the face of a devious and nearly successful campaign to separate them.This is a tale of love, betrayal, truth, honesty, falsehood, deception and tragedy. Only the strength of their love for each other keeps them together—and sane. It's the fourth novel in the Kavanagh saga.