title: The Sweet Caress
author: Latow, Roberta
description: When Jessica Johnson arrives in the sleepy town of Newbampton claiming she has no idea who she is or where she has come from, her presence causes a dramatic sensation: never before have the townspeople seen such an enigmatic beauty, whose ripe sexuality and seductive charm men and women alike.
  Tom Salinger and Jack Webster, professors at the local university, fall desperately in love with Jessica and through relationships with her, experience erotic fulfilment beyond their wildest dreams. But it is Dr. Luke Greenfield, who, believing Jessica suffers from amnesia, wins her heart.
  But has Jessica really forgotten her past or is she just running from it...?
  ROBERTA LATOW
  
  Everything about Roberta Latow was larger and more exotic than life.  She was born in Westchester, New York but escaped her suburban background for Manhattan, where she was at the heart of the dynamic ‘pop art’ scene in the 1960s.  She was a noted art expert and gallery owner and has been credited with giving Andy Warhol the original idea to paint Campbell’s soup cans.
  
  In the early 1970s she went to Europe and moved around different exotic parts of the Mediterranean, which form the background for many of her novels.  She particularly adored Greece and lived there for many years, earning her living as an art dealer and interior decorator.   Later she moved to London and in the early 80s wrote Three Rivers, the first of her 21 erotic novels.  It caused a storm and became an international best-seller.
  
  Roberta was famous for her generosity and the wild parties in her Mayfair apartment.  The carpets were of fur, indoor trees reached to the high ceilings, from which canaries sang in cages and Roberta herself looked magnificent in extraordinary jewelry and eastern garments.  She eventually settled in the English countryside, where she created another magical home, wrote her novels and was much loved by her neighbors.  She died in 2003.