Conflict between the two halves of her business life, and between her new relationship with an editor and his journalistic career, are at the heart of TEXAS MAGIC, about Caroline Coopersmith in Dallas, Texas.

Caroline and the best man, Drew Montgomery, meet for the first time at a wedding and the girl uncharacteristically spends the night with him. She has a hectic working life, with no time for love, but she decides that she is not going to get burned. Drew turns out to be very interested in continuing the relationship so, ignoring the warnings of others that he is a newsman and only trying to dig up dirt, Caroline reverts to her formal manner and insists on three dates before any more intimacy.

Caroline works in the family accountancy firm where her father expects her to take over as senior partner, but by night she bakes cakes for a catering firm called Celebrations Inc., which she runs with her friends. Another girl's father is the boss of Texas Star, a major firm which Drew's newspaper, the Dallas Journal of Business and Development, has been hounding for alleged improprieties. Drew observes that all is not well but passes the work to another journalist because Caroline's family firm is Texas Star's accountant. When the story of corporate misdeeds hits the headlines, Caroline, who has just been signed for a reality cooking show, can't get answers from a patronizing manager at the accountancy firm; and her lover tells her flatly that "Reporters are the watchdogs of society." She has to make choices, and it won't be easy.

I have two criticisms. The tale opens with a few pages telling the story of a woman called Maya making chocolates. She never enters the story again and has nothing more to contribute. So feel free to skip over this distracting character and get to the nub of the tale. More importantly, nobody ever looks out a window or steps out of a car on the highway and shows me what the Texas environment looks like, or describes the night in downtown Dallas. This may be called Texas Magic, but it could be located in any city in the US, with scenes set in offices, apartments and kitchens. For that reason I felt it lacked atmosphere.

The author Nancy Robards Thompson has a degree in journalism which she puts to good use in describing the principles and procedures of journalism, and she has created a cast of characters who act believably in the situations. TEXAS MAGIC is a readable tale of two people trying to find love with each other and still retain their principles.