True Confessions

Gospel, Idaho, is a town where residents hold firmly to two beliefs: the Sawtooth Wilderness Area is the finest thing God ever made, and every wrong in heaven or on earth, from the damaged ozone layer to UFO abductions, can be traced back to California. Hope Spencer, a Californian, has built her career on the outlandish as a writer for the tabloid The Weekly News of the Universe, where she has reported on Bigfoot sightings, Elvis appearances, and a likeness of Jesus found on a tortilla.

Hope arrives in Gospel hoping for calm and an ordinary life, but she finds nothing ordinary there. The townsfolk include the Barnes sisters, whose hair is coordinated by color, and a group of sportsmen who toss toilets for fun. There is also the murder victim whose body turned up in her house years before. Real life in Gospel outdoes anything she has ever printed.

Sheriff Dylan Taber is the most genuine thing she encounters, and as she is drawn to him, Hope admits she has gone too long without a man. When a Hollywood actress turns up somehow connected to Dylan's life, Hope realizes that any future for the two of them depends on him coming clean about the past. The novel is by Rachel Gibson, a writer known for contemporary romance.