Honeymoon Hideaway

Honeymoon Hideaway is a romance novel published by Linda Palmer of Little Rock (Pulaski County), writing under her maiden name, Linda Varner. Released in 1990 by Silhouette Books (later acquired by Harlequin), the novel is set on Petit Jean Mountain and reproduces, as its frontispiece, the lyrics of Wayland Holyfield’s song “Arkansas (You Run Deep in Me).”

The book opens with Sam Knight, a divorce attorney based in Memphis, Tennessee, arriving one Friday evening at the Cedar Ridge Resort, which he owns, located on Petit Jean Mountain. He is outraged to find that the manager, Elizabeth (Libby) Turner, has refashioned his fishing resort into a “honeymoon hideaway” named Wildwood, apparently at the behest of Sam’s sister, Ramona Wilson. Despite it being October, the entire place is booked for the next few months, and Sam, who wrecked his car going up the mountain in a storm, has to bed down for the night in a cabin undergoing renovation.

After talking to his sister on the phone the following morning, Sam intends to sell the hotel to one of the two major chains that have recently made offers on it. Given that his car will not be repaired until Monday, Libby has until then to convince Sam not to sell the hotel. She has several family members working at the hotel and fears for their future should Sam sell it. Ramona suggests that Libby perhaps consider seducing her brother. After dropping Sam’s car off in Morrilton (Conway County), they go to the Conway County Fair and end up kissing in the haunted house.

Sam offers to refrain from selling the hotel if Libby changes the theme, saying, “I cannot, in good conscience, make money off honeymoons and divorces.” But she responds, “You’re a lawyer, for Pete’s sake. Yet you’ve reached your verdict without even taking a look at all the evidence.” He agrees to give her the weekend to persuade him, and after a tour of the hotel and grounds, they end up kissing again. After dinner, they acknowledge their attraction to each other, but Sam still intends to sell the place.

The following morning, she takes him by boat across the lake to visit her grandparents, who are staying in a cabin to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Next, she takes him to have lunch in the resort restaurant with a newly married couple who met at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). At a party for Libby’s grandparents that evening, Sam saves a child from drowning in the lake. As Libby drives Sam back to his cabin, he tells her, “I’m not going to sell out. I’m not going to change Wildwood. You’ve won.”

Although he intends to leave in the morning, Sam comes down with an ear infection that leaves him too dizzy to drive. That night, he wakes up from a nightmare in which Libby is drowning and realizes he loves her, but in the morning and hitches a ride with a couple heading to Memphis. Ramona later calls Libby with news that Sam has decided to expand Wildwood. Libby drives Sam’s now-repaired Jaguar to Memphis as an excuse to see him again. He proposes to her and tells her he intends to leave his firm and move to Arkansas, opening an office in Morrilton. The epilogue, set in April, finds them happily married and living at Wildwood.

In the November 26, 1992, edition of the Arkansas Times, author Palmer referenced Honeymoon Hideaway as her favorite of the books she had written by that point.

For additional information:
Standridge, Ron. “Books of Love.” Arkansas Times, November 26, 1992, pp. 24–25.

Varner, Linda. Honeymoon Hideaway. New York: Silhouette Books, 1990.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas