Is Infidelity In?

Romantic_L_eads Recommendations and reviews of romantic fiction

IS INFIDELITY IN?

ROMANTIC LEADS

PUBLISHED IN SUNDAY HERALD, AUGUST 16, 1998
By A. Janine Taylor

FOR SOME REASON the lure of infidelity seems to be in fashion this fall. Could it be the White House excitement is tainting romantic sensibilities? Two new novels walk a fine line in the romance world by making adultery seem less tawdry and giving new meaning to the word yearning.

The Minister’s Wife

By Delia Parr (St. Martin’s Paperbacks – Sept. 1998, $7.99)

Delia Parr takes readers on a gentle stroll in the country where there happen to be plenty of secrets and titillating turmoil hidden in the bushes.

The heroine, Emilee, married Rev. Randall Greene in 1833 and became the most upright of women in the village of Surrey, New York. Holding true to her vows and obligations was never a problem until temptation arrives, in the form of Jared Burke.

Emilee, a minister-raised orphaned bastard, fears that she has inherited her late mother’s scandalous wantonness. Jared, prodigal son of the same minister that raised Emilee, has returned home to care for his widowed mother. He hides secrets that weigh heavily on his heart and soul.

Striving to maintain their perfect, if unwanted, love untainted by any shameful behavior, Jared and Emilee each face private demons before confronting an unexpected fiend.

The Minister’s Wife is a sweet, sad, satisfying study of soul-searching and scandal.

With Hope

By Dorothy Garlock (Warner – Sept. 1998, $8.99)

It took a well respected and established author like Dorothy Garlock to blow open a fresh era to historical romance fans.

Many of our parents or grandparents lived through the "Dirty Thirties" so, let’s face it, it probably didn’t strike them as a very romantic setting. But to baby-boomers, 1932 in Red Rock, Oklahoma is as distant as a star with just as much fascinating potential.

Garlock starts her depression era trilogy with Tom Dolan _starry-eyed mechanic turned disillusioned dirt farmer. His wife is on a slippery slope heading for insanity and he has inadvertently fallen in love with his neighbor, Henry Ann Henry.

Henry Ann is doing her best to keep her farm, her reputation and her rag-tag family together. After her father’s death, the local rednecks, oil wildcatters and a steady stream of transients drop by the relatively prosperous Henry farm. But Henry Ann courts the gossips’ wrath when she takes in Tom Dolan’s young son to protect him from his mother.

Perhaps hearing the stories of parents who were alive during the Depression augments the effect, but Garlock’s knack for vivid description, pace and plot brings this setting into sharp focus.

Hopefully, with the success of this first novel in the series, publishers will open the field for other innovative settings by historical writers.

A Faerie Tale

By Ginny Reyes (Jove – Aug. 1998, $7.99)

It’s a fun and frivolous fantasy, but the conflict fizzles.

On May Day, 100 years ago, Annie Brennan, well-off would-be artist, wishes for a real leprechaun. Her stuffy banker, Patrick O’Toole, also makes a reluctant wish to meet his true love. The result is the arrival of Eamon, an unlucky leprechaun, and Rosaleen, an inept, but of course, unbelievably beautiful faerie.

These magical creatures take on human forms to try out their matchmaking, and find that the human body offers some interesting opportunities for exciting experimentation.

Meanwhile, Annie and Patrick are doing their best to annoy each other. With a dash of magic, some serious mutual attraction is set into motion. But even ignoring the fact that he’s engaged, how can a flighty artist and a stodgy and yes, unbelievably gorgeous, banker, ever develop a relationship? Well, it would help if they weren’t so stunned. Annie has is inept at business and Patrick lacks the ability to carry on a sensible conversation.

Essentially A Faerie Tale is a good excuse to indulge in some Celtic Lore packaged with lots of very well written love scenes and who’s to say that’s an entirely bad thing?

Janine Taylor is a Halifax-based writer.

Send mail to thetaylors@canada.com with questions or comments about this web site.