Dear Author » Maine

REVIEW: The Way Back by Stephanie Doyle

Jane — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:00:24 +0000

Dear Ms. Doyle:

I believe that this is the first book of yours that I have read but now I’ll definitely be on the look out for more Stephanie Doyle books. Gabby Haines is a former host of Wake Up Philadelphia, the “hottest job on morning television in Philadelphia.” She was replaced by a “younger, thinner, hipper version of herself.” Gabby takes a job at McKay Publishing to pay the bills while she figures out what to do with her life. As the newbie, she’s given the worst assignment. Hunt down Colonel Jamison Hunter and twist his arm into writing the book that McKay had contracted with him many years before.
Colonel Jamison Hunter was once an American hero. An astronaut, Hunter undertook an unauthorized space walk to repair the shuttle and save his crew. His golden image became irreparably tarnished when he was caught in a motel room, half dressed with a woman not his wife. The entire female population that had once idolized him felt like he cheated on them. Gabby was twenty three when it happened and shortly thereafter found her fiancé in bed with her half-sister.

Gabby theorizes that she’ll overcome Hunter’s resistance toward publishing his story and become a writer. Hunter is her ticket to a new life. Hunter, of course, does not want to cooperate. He’s tried to pay his advance back to McKay, has kept those advance funds separate so that he can finally convince them to just leave him alone, but he hadn’t bargained for someone as desperate and determined as Gabby.

The pace of this story is snappy, in part, I believe because of the good dialogue. Gabby takes to following Jamie on the beach during his five mile morning run. The beach is public, Gabby thinks. Jamie tells her that they can talk as long as she can keep up. In the beginning, Gabby can barely last two sentences before Jamie outpaces her. But each day, Gabby gains a little more endurance and each day, Jamie’s admiration for her persistence grows until he wants her in a very real and intimate way:

“We should go out on a date.”

“A date?”

“Yes. An off-island-nice-napkins-restaurant date. I’ll pick you up, we’ll ferry to the mainland and we’ll eat lobster. That kind of date.”

“A date so you can continue to seduce me.”

“Well, that is part of the purpose of the date and I’m not saying I won’t be trying the whole time. But also a date a chance to sit and talk and eat. Get to know each other. I don’t mention taking you to bed because it would be considered ungentlemanly, even though I’m thinking about it. And you don’t talk about the book that I’m never going to agree to write with you. A date.”

There is also a lot of subtlety here because while the story is about infidelity, a failed marriage, and regrets; it is also about acceptance, forgiveness, and overcoming one’s fears. There is a lovely secondary romance between a young woman strongly connected with Jamie and the veterinarian. Like Gabby, Zhanna has had a lot of loss in her life. She, like Gabby, is scared to love because she feels she will only suffer loss. Tom preserves to overcome that but ultimately both Gabby and Zhanna have to rise above their fears.

“I’m not going to sleep with you,” Zhanna blurted.

Tom straightened from where he’d been unloading the bag. He crossed his arms over his chest and ducked his head. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“Isn’t it?” She cradled the fuzz against her cheek and the animal purred so loud it shook. Zhanna would never tell him but she’d slept with men for worse reasons. Seemingly at a loss for words, he eventually burst out laughing. “You know, I suppose it is. I wanted to do something nice for you so you would like me. I want you to like me because I like you. And yes, I hope maybe someday you’ll like me enough to sleep with me. Who knew I was such a cad?”

While there was a strong focus on the term forgive, I really felt that the message should have been one of acceptance. Gabby, in particular, has to accept the past and put it away and move forward to trust that what is offered to her is worth the risk. Forgiveness is usually owed to those who have been harmed and Gabby was never directly harmed by Jamie. Instead, whatever man he was, she had to learn to accept and move forward.

“Why? Why me?”

Because he was everything to her. Everything she wanted to believe a man could be and he made her feel safe. Hell, she even felt safe right now.

“You were heroic. Smart and handsome, brave and daring. You were larger than life. But I also thought you still might be someone who a person could sit beside and have a beer with. You made me feel safe in a dangerous world.” She stared out at the night, a little too embarrassed by her honesty to make eye contact. “Must seem silly to you.”

“It does. What you saw was a fake image of me. A caricature the news created. If they could have, they would have had me walking around like a damn superhero. But I’m not talking about that guy and back then. I’m asking, do you want to have sex with me? The man you’ve known the past few days?”

When I first read this, I thought that this was a decent book but when I read it again to write my review, I realized it was a much stronger book than I had originally given credit. It has a strong secondary romance. It’s funny. It’s sexy. It’s emotionally touching. My grade would be a B. Did I say it was sexy and funny:

“Then think of me. And do sinful things to your body you think I might like to do.” She turned to him surprised to hear such naughty language from a man who had kissed her the way she’d always imagined Lancelot might kiss Guinevere. Then he wiggled his eyebrows like the dirty man he apparently was and made her smile.

“Jamison Hunter, you are a pervert.”

“Gabby Haines, all I can tell you is I’m going to have some pretty rocking dreams tonight.”

Best regards,

Jane

Amazon BN Sony Kobo HQN

REVIEW: Fracture by Megan Miranda

Jia — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:00:21 +0000

Dear Ms. Miranda,

At first impression, your debut novel is a YA paranormal. It has a lot of the trappings. After a life-changing event, a girl develops unusual abilities. She has to choose between a couple guys. But I think applying that label and reducing it to those tropes does it an injustice. This is one of those cases where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Delaney Maxwell is just a regular high school student. She’s the top of her class and aims to be valedictorian. She’s not athletic and dare I say it, is a bit clumsy. She’s best friends with her next-door neighbor and childhood friend, Decker, but their relationship has been tense since he caught her making out with his guy friend. All in all, it’s an ordinary life.

Then one day, she falls through the ice covering a frozen lake. Delaney’s rescued but she was under for 11 minutes. In fact, she was clinically dead. Nearly a week later, she wakes up from a coma to find her life changed. Her brain is so damaged, she shouldn’t even be functional. And yet she walks and talks with no difficulties at all.

But despite surviving her brush with death, Delaney’s life starts to fall apart. The accident reveals the faults in her relationship with her mother. The tensions with Decker come to a head. And inexplicably, she’s drawn to death. And I don’t mean figuratively. She gains the ability to tell when someone is about to die. This dawning realization misleads her parents into thinking their daughter is going crazy.

Then Delaney meets Troy, an older guy who also had a brush with death and spent some time in a coma. He shares her ability to sense death. Desperate for someone to understand what she’s going through, Delaney begins to spend more time with him. But the more she gets to know him, the more she realizes that shared experiences don’t always mean same perspectives and Troy’s outlook on life may be a bit darker.

I was surprised by this book. In an extremely good way. I went in expecting a pleasant read and instead got a thought-provoking story about life, death, and all that comes with it. The novel has a very powerful message, one that I both appreciate and find beautiful.

Delaney is a great protagonist. She’s very real and very flawed. I liked how driven she was to excel academically and how her confusing relationship with Decker showed all the insecurities a teenage girl may have. I found her voice very engrossing:

There are certain things kids must know depending on where they grow up. When my parents took me to Manhattan last summer, I saw kids half my age navigating the subway while Dad squinted at the map on the wall, tracing the colored lines with his finger. Maybe kids in the desert can drain the water from a cactus. I don’t know. But here in northern Maine, we know how to treat hypothermia, we know how t o prevent frostbite, and we know how to rescue someone who has fallen through the ice.

The description of how Delaney was rescued from the ice was very visceral, even secondhand as Fracture is told in first person POV and other people told her what happened. I could easily imagine Decker’s panic. I could see the other kids calling the police and running for help.

I loved the relationship between Delaney and Decker. They’ve known each other since they were kids when Decker declared that he would make her smile. Even her mother used to babysit him. There’s a familiarity in their exchanges that only comes with time.

“Let’s go out for lunch,” he said.

“Can’t. I’m studying French.”

“Seriously? French over food?” Decker didn’t take French (Spanish was more useful, he said). I held the receiver between my shoulder and chin and didn’t stop writing.

“Call Monday after the precalc final.”

“You can’t take a thirty-minute break?”

“I have three words for you, Decker: four point oh.”

“Yeah, well, I have three letters for you: C. P. R. “

Delaney and Decker are stuck in relationship limbo. Until the couch incident with Decker’s friend, she’s never had any real attention from other guys. She knows Decker is more important to her than that of merely a friend but she’s afraid of taking the next step. When you’ve known someone for so long, all the little incidents and minor occurrences that happen over the course of that relationship can add up and do a number on your confidence. I can definitely sympathize with Delaney here.

Similarly, you can tell Decker has feelings for Delaney, even from her point of view, but he doesn’t seem to know how to climb over that “Just a friend” wall. To say that Delaney’s near-death experience shakes him up is an understatement. He didn’t know how to handle the possibility that Delaney might never have woken up from her coma, and he’s frustrated that there are so many things he now doesn’t understand about his best friend.

I thought the depiction of Delaney’s family was really well done. Her accident revealed a lot of family secrets about her mother’s background and parents. Prior to the accident, Delaney never would have thought to question or wonder about these things because she’d never had a hint of their existence. We’re clearly shown how her mother’s past and relationship with her parents affect her relationship with Delaney. And even though it’s told through Delaney’s eyes, we see her mother’s panic over the possibility of losing her daughter in more ways than one.

Above all, though, I liked how this novel explores death and reinforces the idea that you must seize life because you never know which day will be your last. Accidents happen all the time and you can’t control them, no matter how much you may try. Life is both random and cruel. Someone who should die doesn’t, and someone who shouldn’t die does. Delaney tries to come to peace with this fact. Troy, on the other hand, has let it poison him:

“This, this” — he waved his arms around his body, trying to capture the entirety of Earth in his gesture– “is a punishment.”

“For what?”

“For me, for driving that goddamn car off the road.” My stomach clenched. That hadn’t been in the article. “For getting stuck. For killing my entire family. For not being able to help them. God wouldn’t let me die. So, you tell me, what did you do? Why didn’t you get to die?”

Decker didn’t let me die, only he didn’t do it out of hate. But I didn’t tell Troy that. I let him keep his grief. It was all he had left of them.”

Fracture is less paranormal and more medical mystery. We don’t know why Delaney appears normal despite the amount of brain damage she received. And truthfully, we never learn why because the human body is more complicated than that. Yes, she gains the ability to predict death but that’s not really the point. Society in general fears death but if you’ve lived a long, fruitful life, what is there to be afraid of exactly? I really enjoyed this story of how one life-changing accident reveals all the fault lines in our relationships and in our life, and I’m looking forward to your next novel, whatever it may be. B+

My regards,
Jia

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

REVIEW: The Boss’s Proposal by Kristin Hardy

Jayne — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Dear Ms. Hardy,

Almost two years ago, I reviewed the first book in your series about the McBain’s of Grace Harbour, “The Chef’s Choice.” You mentioned that the next book wouldn’t be out for a while. Well, you were right but I still remembered the series and picked up “The Boss’s Proposal” when I saw it.

Max McBain, despite her masculine sounding name, is a beautiful blonde with a ton of talent. She’s worked for seven years at the BRS architecture firm and it looks like her efforts are about to pay off. The architect who was slated to head the bid for the new addition to the Portland General Medical Center has jumped ship and Max can almost taste her promotion now.

That is until she arrives for work and discovers that the man she flirted with the night before at the benefit to raise money for the new oncology center is actually the boss’s son and he’s going to take over the project. Dylan Reynolds quickly catches on to the fact that Max expects she can flirt and schmooze her way around him to get the design the way she wants it. And yeah she’s smart and a damn good architect but he’s going to run this show and have some fun flirting back before they wrap the bid and he heads back to his current project in Dubai. But is there a chance at love they’re missing as they work out the details for their presentation?

In “The Chef’s Proposal” you had a chef fall for a landscaper and actually included details about their professions. Bliss. Here it’s two architects with differing visions for their proposal who are your hero and heroine. And again you make their work integral to their lives and to the story. Thank you. And it’s nice to revisit Cady and Damon as they prepare for their wedding and think seriously of just eloping to Vegas to avoid the hassle.

There is instant chemistry between Max and Dylan as well as instant conflict. I like that neither turns into a lust puddle even if Dylan does push my comfort envelope with his hands on flirting. If Max hadn’t already shown her interest enough for him to feel confident of not getting slapped with a harassment warning, some of their early scenes could have stepped slightly over my line. But Max is a strong enough character to hold her own both personally and professionally for most of the book.

Alas I lose a bit of respect for Dylan when word of their office affair leaks out and it takes a toll on Max. I just didn’t see that he ever truly “got” how damaging this could be to her career. And the way everything is taken care of by their plans to start their own firm only appears to brush it still further under the rug rather than actually deal with it. Dylan redeems himself some by his care and thoughtfulness during Max’s father’s hospitalization but not quite enough to cancel that first bit out.

While for me this book doesn’t equal the first in the series, I hope that your editor will let you carry on and write a story for Max’s brother Walker. Now there’s a man who has already been put through the wringer and deserves his shot at a HEA. C+

~Jayne

REVIEW: The Last Will of Moira Leahy by Therese Walsh

Janine — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:00:55 +0000

Dear Ms. Walsh,

You don’t know me, but I sometimes lurk at your blog, Writer Unboxed, which is one of the best blogs for writers I know of. I’ve been following it since the days when you were writing this book, under the working title of Unbounded, so when Jane told me that we had been sent an ARC of The Last Will of Moira Leahy, I was interested in reading it.

The Last Will of Moira Leahy is narrated in both first person and third person. The first person sections take place in the present day and are narrated by twenty-five year old Maeve Leahy, the book’s main character. The third person sections take place between 1995 and 2000, and are mostly written in the POV of Maeve’s identical twin, Moira.

It becomes clear early in the present day story that Maeve lost her twin nine years ago at the age of sixteen, so although we are not told the details of how and why Moira’s life ended, we do know that the “Out of Time” third person sections, which begin when the twins are happy ten year olds, are slowly and inexorably leading us to a very painful event.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Maeve, now a foreign languages professor thanks to an accelerated academic career, is haunted by Moira’s absence. She bleaches her red hair because she can’t bear to look at her reflection, since it reminds her of her twin. She never visits her parents in Maine, doesn’t date anyone and doesn’t play music. She focuses almost entirely on her work and has only three friends — her roommate and childhood friend, Kit; Garrick, an elderly antique store owner; and Garrick’s grandson Noel, whom she has known since they were both freshmen at Betheny U.

Although Noel is now away in Europe, his years-long friendship with Maeve has taught her how to bid at auctions, and since the time of year in which she lost Moira has arrived and Maeve is badly in need of a distraction, she decides to attend one.

Once there, Maeve finds her attention captured by a Javanese knife called a keris. It reminds her of a similar blade which her grandfather once owned, and which she lost. She ends up bidding a lot more than she planned to in order to acquire it, and afterward, she learns from Garrick that kerises are said to have magical properties.

Mysterious things begin to happen soon afterward. Maeve has been hearing piano music for a while, but now these experiences intensify. She is haunted by strange dreams, and discovers a book about Javanese weapons nailed to her door, and then a note bearing only the word eling, Javanese for “remember.”

In the interspersed third person sections, we learn that Maeve and Moira were very close, even having their own language in early childhood, and a sixth sense connection with one another that persisted well into their teen years. Their mother did all that she could to distinguish between them, to encourage them to grow in different directions. But when Maeve and Moira developed feelings for the same boy, and he was only interested in one of them, things began to go awry…

Back in the present day, Maeve receives an invitation from a maker of Javanese knives to come find him in Italy and learn more about her keris. As a young girl, Maeve always wanted to travel, but she buried that dream at the age of sixteen, and has never been out of the country. But the people in her life insist that she go, and she finds herself on a plane to Rome.

In Italy, Noel is waiting, and Maeve has been missing him badly. She is afraid to admit that her feelings for Noel may be more than platonic, afraid to live her life fully again. But when more mysterious notes appear, and a man who wants the keris begins to seem dangerous, Maeve is brought closer — to her painful memories, to romantic feelings for Noel, to herself, and to Moira’s last will.

The Last Will of Moira Leahy is a cross genre novel, with elements of mystery, women’s fiction, paranormal/magical realism, coming of age novel and romance blended together almost seamlessly, an impressive feat. I loved the way all those genres entwined.

The book got off to a slow start for me because the present day sections within the first hundred or so pages struck me as melancholy. While this was totally fitting to Maeve’s circumstances, I found myself looking forward to the “Out of Time” sections in Moira’s third person POV, which showed the twins’ growing up years and provided a respite from Maeve’s suffering.

Maeve seemed older than her twenty-five years, and while I understood that this was because she was so steeped in grief, there were times when I wished she’d show more signs of youthfulness or immaturity because it was difficult to remember that she wasn’t in her thirties. It wasn’t until Maeve arrived in Rome, about one-third of the way though the book, and her relationship with Noel was revealed, that I became deeply engrossed in the story and from then on, it was impossible to put the book down.

I loved Noel — the section in which his feelings for Maeve came to the fore was touching, romantic and in many ways my favorite part of the book. I did wonder though, if Noel wasn’t a little too perfect, a little too much exactly what Maeve needed. It seemed like he was patient when she needed patience and impatient when she needed a push.

But this is not something I can complain about too much because Noel was such a great guy and so different from the typical romance hero — perceptive, artistic, tender, but at the same time romantic, sexy, and so clearly in love with Maeve that I was rooting for him to get the girl and for Maeve to let herself find happiness again.

As for Maeve, she was a somber, sensitive woman whose grief for her twin was still palpable even after nine years. Even though I wanted her to move on, I empathized with her inability to do so, and when the tragedy she had suffered was fully revealed, I cried so hard that I had to wipe my glasses over and over.

The teenaged Moira was more flawed, but it didn’t make her any less sympathetic to me, and I also felt a lot of compassion for the girls’ parents.

All the settings were beautifully evoked, Rome especially, and the last two thirds of the book were so gripping that I forgot the rest of my life and became wholly absorbed in the story. This book was ultimately about healing from grief, about Maeve’s relationship with Moira, and about remembering past and yet letting it go. While I wish that the first third had been as engaging to me as the rest, and that the romance had been longer and more drawn out (romantic relationships being my favorite kind to read about), I think this was ultimately an emotional and rich journey, and I recommend it highly. B+ for The Last Will of Moira Leahy.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

This book was provided to the reviewer by either the author or publisher. The reviewer did not pay for this book but received it free. The Amazon Affiliate link earns us a 6-7% affiliate fee if you purchase a book through the link (or anything for that matter) and the Sony link is in conjunction with the sponsorship deal we made for the year of 2009. We do not earn an affiliate fee from Sony through the book link.

REVIEW: Catch of the Day by Kristan Higgins

Jayne — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:00:45 +0000

Dear Ms. Higgins,

This isn’t quite a straight contemporary and yet is not all the way to Chick Lit. I was firmly in Maggie’s corner as she searches for Mr. Right but I gotta say, it’s sad when two priests join your family in trying to find blind dates for you. Yet Maggie stays upbeat during the search. She isn’t too picky, demanding Mr. Rich-and Handsome, nor does she sink to accepting Mr. Merely Breathing. It’s also the second story set in Maine I’ve read in the past month. Is this the new Idaho?

Thank you for not trying to catch the local accent in the writing. One character is portrayed with only the Maine accent but you didn’t pepper the rest of the book with more than an occasional “ayuh” thereby avoiding a major peeve of mine – the Faux Highland Brogue Syndrome.

Yet there’s a lot of local color and habits – “jeezum” and stuff about lobstermen, and the fact that they think 55 degrees is weather for short sleeves and suntanning. Really? And May is the beginning of warm weather – oh burrrr says the Southern Girl in me. The rocky coast, the sound of the sea lapping the harbor rocks, the Blessing of the Fleet, and the monument to lost sailors. All of this added a lot to my enjoyment of the book. I appreciate that the book stops short of making this small town too cutesy or the people too “colorful” just for laughs.

I can see how Maggie’s mother would want her daughters to have more opportunities than she did or the ones she felt she lost/gave up. And that she probably won’t ever see the diner as such a great accomplishment – she probably grew up with it and will always remember it as the more greasy food place it was before Maggie put so much time and work in its renovation into a classic diner. And people are strange and often unintentionally hurtful in how they relate to others, especially their own family. She ragged Maggie because she felt Maggie needed the most care.

I love the relationship among Maggie and her siblings. Jonah names his boat the “Twin Menace” after his sisters and they in return call him “Bunny Boy.” Jonah hauls friends over to watch Maggie’s satellite TV and laughs at her mix-ups yet they all stick with each other in the end.

I quite understand Christy’s response to hearing their parent’s news. Even though she’s an adult, it’s hard to hear this. Her husband Will is almost too good to be true. The scenes of Maggie baby-sitting her niece are touching without activating my gag reflex. But wouldn’t it be easy for people to tell the twins apart based on their hands?

I had a feeling about Colonel. Once I found out his age, I knew he’d never make it to the end of the book. Yet the sections with him and Maggie were among the most moving to me since I’ve also lost beloved pets to old age. I freely admit to sobbing through some of them.

I found most of the book to be very funny. Yet after a while, I got tired of Maggie always ending up as the romantic joke of the town. In fact, I was tired of it long before she was. And why does she still keep mooning on about Father Tim for over a year? And not just daydreams but losing her train of thought and still staring at him in public? Then there’s the fact, as Maggie eventually admits to herself, that he took a little bit of advantage of her during the year as a source of food for various church functions. I didn’t end up with very happy feelings towards Father Tim.

The book definitely needed more of Malone’s POV. Yes, I know it’s a first person book but I’ve read those and still managed to get to know a hero’s thoughts and plans and hopes more than here. Malone is starting to open up but he’s still much of an enigma at books end. And what was with the scene where he got so mad and threw her out? We get drips and drabs of his past life but there are still a lot of questions I have about Malone.

Chantal is known for her male conquests and tells Maggie she’s slept with a few particular men yet Maggie immediately jumps to conclusions and makes an assumption. I admit that it is odd whom Chantal does confide in but Maggie’s quite ready to condemn someone very quickly.

The sex scenes could be rated G yet the intensity between Maggie and Malone can still be felt. I agree with one Amazon reviewer who praised the hand cream rubbing scene. Who can’t fall for a guy who sees this need of Maggie’s and makes sure he takes care of it. Kind of like a guy who makes sure his heroine’s tires are in good shape or, as Malone does, comes to her rescue when Maggie is unexpectedly confronted with an old flame. Malone is a man who notices the small things about her as well as the big.

The ending with Skip is not the exhilarating “tell him off” that some authors would engineer yet it places Skip in his appropriate place. A “used to be” boyfriend who acknowledges he handled their ending badly and whose current life is probably not all it’s cracked up to be despite the seemingly wonderful outward appearance. He’s a car salesman and how truly glamorous is that?

It’s nice to see the character’s jobs being incorporated into the story and there are two great examples here. Maggie is a hardworking owner of a diner. We see her doing her job in public and private, her concerns to improve the diner, her efforts to garner more attention for it. With Malone, it’s his skills as a lobsterman which take prominent place. He keeps his boat clean and in order, knows how to pilot it, is known as the first man out of the harbor and the last one back in.

Maggie suffers from a lot of the pratfalls expected of a Chick Lit heroine (her blind dates are hysterically funny – the Groin, the lobster decimator and animal mind reader, the grandfather) yet her inner struggles with her jealousy over her sister’s perfect life, husband and child, ground her and make her a much more sympathetic heroine than the usual one found in this genre. It’s not pea green envy so much as a woman wondering what’s so hard about finding a nice man who wants to settle down, raise a few children, live a good life with a loving partner.

“Catch of the Day” is an emotional and yet quick read. I was glued to it and managed to read it in one day and this was after spending a little bit of time finishing up another book. Thanks to Jane for introducing me to your work. B+

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.

REVIEW: Sea Witch by Virginia Kantra

Jane — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:00:35 +0000

Dear Ms. Kantra:

Sea Witch is a departure from the paranormals that I prefer. It’s the real world with a paranormal aspect instead of fully developed alternate reality. This type of paranormal is usually not my favorite but really worked in this situation. I’ve not read a lot of Kantra books. I think the last one I read was Mad Dog and Annie, a Silhouette Intimate Moments. I’m certainly on board for more Kantra’s, though, after reading this one.

The heroine, Margred, is a selkie whose love for the sea is greater than all else. Her husband was taken from her years ago; but while she misses him selkies, by their nature, are very solitary. Her only need is one of physical companionship and this drives her from the water to a small island community. “Your island is between the Arctic current and the Gulf Stream, like . . . a convenient resting place for anyone making the ocean crossing.” Margred informs the hero, Caleb, at one point in the story.

Caleb Hunter is the police chief of World’s End. He’s taken the job to gain a measure of peace after a miserable tour of duty in Iraq and a number of years serving on the Major Crime Division in Portland. He grew up in World’s End and isn’t sorry to have returned. His life seems to take an uptick when he spots the beautiful and barely clad Margred on the beach after he finished rousting some underaged drinkers.

Margred has come to the island for one thing — physical release. Caleb resists initially but her open invitation “I walk on the beach in the evening. . . Come find me sometime when you are not on duty” is a siren call that he can’t ignore. They pleasure each other for hours and Caleb watches her walk off believing that they’ll meet again only she doesn’t return. Frustrated, embarrassed, a little angry, he tries to forget the encounter but finds himself back at the beach looking for her.

But Margred is a selkie. She does not need, nor want, constant companionship. However, memories of Caleb and their time together draw her back but once she returns, a demon is waiting for her to steal her pelt and destroy her. Caleb finds her in the midst of the assault and rescues her. Because Margred’s pelt is taken away from her, she cannot return to the sea. Caleb finds a job for her at a local restaurant and tries to investigate the assault.

Margred begins to find pleasure in the human trappings and eventually must face the choice of going back to the sea or staying with Caleb.

If I were to characterize this book, it would be the subtlety of the writing. The characterizations, the backstories, the worldbuilding are deftly intertwined with the story. The reader is allowed the pleasure of discovery by the unwrapping of the details. I found the descriptions to be vivid.

A cloud of scent and steam rolled from the bathroom and enveloped him. Cucumber, melon, apricot, strawberry, mixed and mingled together.
His head swam. Like a fricking bomb had gone off at a farmers’ market.
He cleared his throat. “Maggie?”
“In here.” Her throaty voice purred through the open bathroom door.
Hell, he knew she was in there. Wet. Naked.
Vulnerable, he reminded himself.
“Do you, uh, need anything?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
Nothing.
He related his breath. Okay. He’d seen her naked before. Recently. Just because she sounded like a wet dream and smelled like a whole roll of Lifesavers was no reason to lose his mind or his cool.

Caleb is a great hero. As evidenced by the scene above, he is both human in his desires but principled in his actions. He strives hard to always do the right thing. He’s a man who deserves some pleasure and happiness in his life.

Margred is more prickly but I liked her characterization. It would not have been natural for her to be warm and cuddly and responsive to Caleb’s emotional overtures. Her instinct is toward solitude. Her desire for the water is great. It makes the story more tender, more romantic that Margred would fall in love with Caleb, something a selkie would ordinarily never do. Her initial indifference fits the worldbuilding and it made her emotional transition from viewing Caleb as something inconsenquential to something necessary powerful.

Both sacrifice to be together. Caleb and Margred find that in giving in, allowing yourself to be changed, yields miraculous results. Margred’s changes are greater than Caleb’s but he must learn to trust and have a bit less control. B

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or in Mobipocket ebook format.

REVIEW: The Widow by Carla Neggers

Jane — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:00:05 +0000

Dear Ms. Neggers:

I saw from your website that this is your first hardcover. I read your book directly after finishing Linda Howard’s Cover of Night. You would suppose that given La Belle Howard’s huge popularity and my love for many of her works, your placement in the reading order would result in a negative. Fortunately, I kept thinking throughout The Widow that this is how Linda Howard should have done it. Your book and Linda Howard’s have a couple of similarities.

Suspense thread
Grieving widow
Mild unrequited love (in Howard’s, this is a bit more pronounced).

On every level, this was a better story. Abigail Browning is a widow whose FBI Agent husband is killed on their honeymoon when the two of them went to stay in his home in upper Maine. One day, Abigail is attacked by someone and her necklace is stolen. Her husband, Christopher, comes home to find her injured. He is angry and believes he knows who is responsible. Later that night he goes out to confront the attacker. Chris does not return. Instead, he is found shot in the head but the crime remains unsolved. This bothers many people. Abigail’s father is the director of the FBI and was at the time of Chris’ death. Lee Beeler, a Maine State Police Detective and one of the most respected detectives of the state, cannot shake off the unsolved nature of Chris’ death. When Abigail begins to receive telephone calls on the 7th Anniversary of Chris’ death that the answer to his murder is at the home of his death, she can’t ignore it. Nor is she encouraged to.

She returns to Mt. Desert Island. There she begins to investigate, once again, the murder of Chris Browning. During this investigation, she reconnects with an old friend of Chris’, Owen Garrison. His home shares a driveway with Abigail’s. Owen’s family is a wealthy and well connected family who sold their home at Mt. Desert Island when Owen’s 13 year old sister drown off the coast. Owen was 11 at the time. Owen and Abigail both understand loss. Both have been marked by it but both are able to move past their grief and loss to recognize that between them they have a chance at something worthwhile.

The romance was intrical to the storyline. Abigail acknowledges that she cannot ever have the first love again, but that does not mean she doesn’t want to love again. Owen acknowledges that maybe he has always been attracted to Abigail but that dormant attraction did nothing to stop him from living. When they are thrown together by Abigail’s investigation, Owen’s feelings are brought to the surface and he is slow but not shy in revealing them to Abigail.

You do a good job of setting up a couple of different people as the killers and I wasn’t quite sure who it was until the end. I only deduced it based on a process of elimination as you parceled out clues. I was a bit disappointed in the reveal and the motivations for getting Abigail to come up and re open old wounds. You explained it but I wasn’t sure I completely bought into it. However, the journey was believable and real and that made up for the somewhat poor ending.

I also thought the romance was resolved in a modern way. There is no wedding, but I certainly believe in the success of this couple and that the two of them love each other equally. As a suspense, there were some niggles as I stated earlier regarding the killer’s activities in the book, but the romance was good. B- for you. I would definitely recommend this over Cover of Night any day of the week.

Best regards,

Jane