BOOKS Bosoms, Biceps, and Best Sellers

SANDRA BROWN IS LATE. ALSO embarrassed. The best-selling novelist has forgotten our appointment.

“I got home late last night from taking my daughter to college.” Her telephone voice is only slightly flustered. “Would you mind coming to the house? It’ll take me about a half-hour to get ready.”

Her home sits high up in one of the few Arlington neighborhoods with a view. Fort Worth hums in the distance. Sandra Brown never discusses what she earns, and her publisher, like all publishers, inflates sales figures for publicity purposes. But never mind the numbers: Her house looks like a perfect setting for. . .yes, we’ll say it. .. a romance novel.

The housekeeper opens the door, welcomes me in, and goes off to fetch me a diet Coke. The living room has a 30-foot ceiling, light oak floors, and lavish furnishings. The Kawai grand piano is not quite tucked away, but doesn’t dominate the expansive room, either. The glass door on the left leads to the pool, the one straight ahead to a large deck, and beyond that lies the million-dollar view.

This is much better than meeting at her office. The housekeeper is solicitous but not hovering. Ryan. Brawn’s teenage son is tan, shirtless-a hero in training?-and rumpled from sleep at 11:15 in the morning. Three large paintings of loving couples, art from her book jackets, hang in the dining and living room. A hallway bookcase off the living room contains dozens of copies of her early, steamy paperback romances, with two Bibles right in the middle of the row.

Is this snooping?

The conversation area is sleek. The only books in view are old and weathered-on an end table for effect. A small photo album sits atop the coffee table. Family photographs, probably. The cover is brown with gold detailing, and there, inside, is Sandra Brown…practically naked.

This is snooping.

Sandra Brown in a green negligee, Sandra Brown snuggling up to a fur. Sandra Brown in perfect makeup and hair, brows carefully styled, looking very much like the former model and television personality that she is. Sandra Brown, showing a good deal of her extremely attractive 43-year-old legs. Sandra Brown cheesy, smiling, pouting. . .

“So sorry to keep you waiting.” Sandra Brown, live and in person, tucks her purse under her arm and leads the way to her convertible.

Snooping. Definitely snooping.



OVER LUNCH SHE APOLOGIZES AGAIN. “WE GOT HOME FROM OU VERY late last night.” She later lets it slip that she was mistaken for an entering freshman. “Then I couldn’t sleep last night. You see. today is Wednesday.”

Total puzzlement on this side of the table.

“The New York Times best-seller list is announced on Wednesday. Breath of Scandal has been out two and a half weeks now and that’s about how long it takes to make the list. There’s a telephone number you can call to hear a record-ing of the best-seller list.”

So later on today, she’ll call?

“Oh, no.” She acts horrified at the thought. “My agent or publisher will make the call and let me know if there’s good news.” And there’s been plenty to pass along over the years.

Brown sold her first romance novel 11 years ago, A combination of aptitude and hard work-for a while she wrote five or six books a year-made Brown one of the most successful romance writers in the country, even if no one knew her name at first. For a while she was using three different pseudonyms with as many different publishing companies.

Like many genre writers, however, she eventually began to want more-more readers, more recognition, and more remuneration. She also began to tire of the constricting requirements of the romance category. After more than 50 books she’d varied the themes six ways to Sunday.

Even though the market is not as strong as it was a few years ago. Publisher’s Weekly says that romances currently make up about 40 percent of all mass-market paperback sales. With that important market to protect, publishers tinker with the romantic formula only gingerly, and only with authors they feel very confident about.

“It was a painful decision. Did I want to give up something that was lucrative and secure for something that was unknown?” The answer, finally, was yes,

Slow Heat in Heaven, Brown’s first non-romance novel, was published in 1988. It was very successful, becoming Waldenbooks’ single best-selling title release for the year. Still, she wasn’t quite ready to give up the security blanket of category books and her position there at the top of the heap. She kept writing the shorter romance novels before finally setting aside (he nine months it took to produce her second non-romantic venture into mainstream fiction.

Published last year by Warner Books, Mirror Image became Brown’s first New York Times best seller. “I’d been on all the other lists before,” she says, “but the Times list is the bench mark. When I made that one, my publisher sent roses.” The story-about a woman who, after being severely disfigured in a plane crash, undergoes extensive plastic surgery, is mistaken for a Texas senatorial candidate’s wife, and then perpetuates the lie in order to prevent a murder-is currently under option for a television movie. It’s her first Hollywood deal and casting is underway.

“With this book there’s much more pressure,” says Brown. “The first time you make the list it’s a big surprise and everyone is happy. Now it’s expected of me.” Which is why she didn’t sleep last night, although you wouldn’t know it from looking at her. For the final publicity push she will be going on a talk show tour of the Midwest next week. “My mother says, ’I can’t believe you do all that traveling alone.’ ” Brown laughs as if she occasionally doesn’t believe it herself. “It is nice to have my work recognized, but it’s exhausting to be on-Sandra Brown, Author-constantly. I come home from a lour [she’s already done one for book wholesalers on Breath of Scandal] and don’t want to say a single word for three days.”

What she does instead is hole up in her office, a high-ceilinged, spacious loft a half-mile from her house, and write. “I used to rough out 10 to 15 pages a day. 1 don’t do that anymore, but even after 55 books I sometimes panic that I won’t be able to get it down, so I’m very particular about keeping regular hours.” Since she knew the week would be busy, she spent the previous Saturday and Sunday, minus church time, at her office writing.

Coincidentally, Brown’s last romance, Texas! Sage, written some time ago, was published as a Doubleday hard-cover this past summer. The difference between her old style and her new work is obvious. In Texas! Sage the plot is true to the formula. The hero cusses elaborately-though the words themselves are never actually used. Publisher’s Weekly describes it as “stereotypical but amusing” and “summer-reading fluff.”

“And that’s precisely what it was supposed to be,” says an annoyed Brown, clearly frustrated at being a target in the sport of romance-bashing. “These books serve the same function as a Rambo movie. I’ve never claimed to want to change the world, or provoke the invention of new ideas. What I’ve always wanted to do is entertain readers.”

And entertain them she does with the new one, Breath of Scandal. It has lots of subplots, intrigue, and revenge, plus a reasonable dose of the slippery sex scenes she’s known for. Four-lelter words, or “a little coarser language,” as she discreetly puts it. may be a shock to her romance readers, but are very much a part of her new direction. And it doesn’t hurt that her subject is timely. In the early chapters her heroine is raped by three acquaintances. She spends the rest of the book trying to get revenge. Brown was horrified, however, when her publisher recently asked her to appear on a television show about date rape. She refused. “I’m not a sociologist, or any kind of expert. I’m just a storyteller.”

Never mind the modesty, her publisher is clearly pleased. Even before the returns on Breath of Scandal were in, Warner had decided to give her 1992 book, French Silk. the big push in hard-cover.

“Mainstream fiction” is the description Sandra Brown now prefers for her work. And Danielle Steele’s massive audience is the one she’s after. It’s possible. There are about a million, copies of Breath of Scandal out in the racks. The movie of Mirror Image may go into production any day. She is Sandra Brown, Author. And today is Wednesday.