Ballantine Books (Paperback), ISBN 0-8041-2004-8

After an unhappy childhood, marine biologist Lily Banyon left her hometown with hardly a backwards look. Her mother, Kaye, never could say anything nice about Lily. To make matters worse, Lily always found herself at odds with neighbor Sean McDermott, despite the long friendship between their mothers and grandmothers. When her employer sends her back to her hometown to lead a study of the nearby coral reef, Lily reluctantly agrees, planning to go, get the work done and leave as fast as possible. On her way there with her two fellow researchers, Karen and John, Lily gets a huge surprise -- her old enemy Sean now runs the town as mayor.

Though the pair reacquaints contentiously, something more lies beneath the surface. Unbeknownst to either of them, Sean and Lily carry torches for each other, stretching back to their school days. But they also do a good job of pushing each other's buttons, a skill not diminished by time. Eventually, however, they realize their feelings and develop a steamy relationship.

Problems lurk, though. Sean opposes a planned development and marina expansion, advocated by his previous mayoral opponent, Pete Ferrucci. Ferrucci plans on this project getting done one way or another. Seeing a potential ally in John, Ferrucci buys clean test results to try and ensure his desired outcome. In addition, he decides to bring down Sean by hiring a detective to dig up dirt on Sean and Lily. As time runs out before the presentation on the study, Lily and Karen discover John's deception. They return to the water in the face of a huge storm to obtain some new samples. In the process Lily ends up hospitalized, while Sean makes plans to get the deception straightened out publicly.

Laura Moore writes a fiery love story in Night Swimming, one full of zinging insults and smoldering passion. But the deception/sample testing story arc also proves entertaining, adding depth to the novel. Ferrucci comes across as a stereotypical bad guy, but John seems more ambiguous, which made for a nice change. At times he seemed as smarmy as Ferrucci, but at others he seemed like a good guy, if slightly arrogant. An excellent story.

Jen Foote

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