RomanticLeads Recommendations and reviews of romantic fiction
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RomanticLeads Recommendations and reviews of romantic fiction
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ROMANTIC LEADS COLUMN By Janine Taylor Author Deborah Hale has written a gentle historical novel I
think you’ll enjoy. I also a review a historical by Hale’s writing idol,
Susan Wiggs, and a thought-provoking Christmas contemporary by Toronto-based
writer Susanna Kearsley. A Gentleman of Substance This is the second published novel by Nova Scotia's own romance star. It’s another marriage-of-convenience and another winner. Lucy Rushton is in the worst possible predicament a vicar’s daughter could find herself in, circa 1812. She is standing over her charming fiancé Jeremy Strickland’s grave, pregnant with his child. Jeremy’s brother, aloof and callous Viscount Drake Strickland, proposes that they marry to provide her and the child with legitimacy. Not to mention an heir for him. The cold-blooded arrangement, which suits them both, becomes a venue for intimacy. In Lucy and Drake’s day-to-day lives they discover each other’s practical and caring nature. Lucy and Drake’s newfound loving respect is put to the test when Drake’s relatives attempt to sabotage their marriage. Hale’s characters are appealingly human, leaving the reader to eagerly anticipate her next novel. The Horsemaster’s Daughter Susan Wiggs is in top form with this disturbing and tender story of misalliance on a Virginia plantation. Hunter Calhoun is a good-ole-boy Southern gentleman, hard-drinking older brother of flamboyant Ryan of Wigg’s last book The Charm School. Hunter inherited a destitute tobacco plantation and countless slaves. Widowed and disgraced, he has worked hard and has nearly re-established his wealth through a prosperous horse breeding business instead. The latest in a string of tragedies is the arrival his prize Irish racehorse, which has turned mad after a stormy ocean crossing. To avoid destroying the horse, Hunter takes it to a mysterious English horsemaster rumoured to live on Flyte Island. But the man has died and Hunter finds only Eliza, the horsemasters daughter. Having grown up isolated on Flyte Island, Eliza is unspoiled and trusting and most importantly, gifted with her father’s talent for gentling horses. Eliza’s patient treatment heals the horse, but she finds that Hunter and his children are in need of a loving therapy. She feels compelled to help. The love that she offers to heal her human patients is far more complicated than with horses. Southern society will never accept a dark-skinned, barefoot nobody as part of Hunter’s family, no matter how much they have come to love her. Named of the Dragon Berkley placed the Romantic Suspense label on Kearsley’s wonderful, mystical and mysterious story now out in paperback. But suspenseful plot is not what keeps readers riveted, it’s Kearsley’s outstanding characters and settings. Literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw, plagued by nightmares, has accompanied a temperamental children’s author on a Christmas vacation to a cottage in Wales. She finds herself in a historically picturesque village with a cadre of moody writers who set a unique tone for Christmas. Further confounding Lyn’s desire for a relaxing holiday, the delicate and fearful widow living next door assigns Lyn as mystical guardian for her son. As much as she wishes to ignore this bizarre behaviour, Lyn’s nightmares have changed to include images and characters from Wales’ history. Any doubts she has about the widow’s fears are dismissed when Lyn’s dreams and premonitions lead to real life torments. Kearsley writes to a standard comparable to Catherine
Cookson and Dick Francis combined. Janine Taylor is a Halifax writer. She can be reached at romanticleads@hotmail.com or http://welcome.to/romanticleads Copyright © 1999 Janine Taylor Distributed By Writers Syndication Services |
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