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Red Hart Magic
Andre Norton
Starscape (Tor), Feb 2007, $5.99
ISBN: 0765353024
Chris Fitton’s father and Nan Mallory’s mother marry leaving their stunned twelve year old offspring to stay with Aunt Elizabeth for six months while their parents gallivant in Mexico. Both children are used to living with someone else; whereas Chris stayed at boarding schools, Nan was raised by her grandma, who has moved into a senior citizen’s community in which children can visit for short times, but cannot stay. At a nearby store, Chris finds the model of the Red Hart Inn. At night while asleep and dreaming, Chris and Nan believe they have traveled to the real Red Hart.
“The King’s Hunters”. During the rule of King James, Chris and Nan try to save the innkeeper accused of being a priest who if true illegally owns the Red Hart Inn which is punishable by death.
“The Gentlemen”. The smugglers seek the wounded excise officer in order to kill him before he can identify them to authorities; he hides in the Red Hart Inn where Chris and Nan try to keep him safe.
“Hue and Cry”. When the fire burned down Squire Mallory’s barn, Chris is accused of committing the arson that almost killed several people. Bow Street runner Harry Hawkins, a friend of the family, tries to prove the lad is innocent before an angry mob takes justice into its own hands.
This reprint of a 1970s young adult tale is character driven as in between their adventures; Nan and Chris have problems at home and at school. They feel like they do not belong anywhere and reject being step-siblings. The most popular girl in class wants Nan as a friend, but at an exorbitant cost; the most popular boy in the school picks on Chris. However, their time travel “dreams” that they have shared provide confidence for both to seek the right thing. Thus the great Andre Norton provides the audience with a strong fantasy wrapped inside a poignant family drama.
Fitness Kills
Helen Barer
Five Star, July 2007, $25.95, 207 pp.
ISBN 1594145877
Max and Nora have each other but their differences make them separate. She thinks he is too controlling and dominating and looks at her career as a food critic and columnist as fluff. She takes a job at Rancho de las Flores in Baja, California in order to revamp the old fashioned vegetarian recipes and when she leaves she will write a book on the new food served at the spa. The first couple of weeks she is lonely because the chef doesn’t want her to make changes.
During her third week there is a group of people who go from spa to spa around the country. Nora immediately likes millionaire businessman Alison Evans and Cece who takes the instructor under their wings. One of the group never shows up and his body is found on Mount Chuchuma, his head injury the cause of death. They are not sure if it is an accident or murder until Cece imbibes a drink with her name on it and dies instantly. It is obvious she is poisoned and Nora believes the same person also killed Alan. She investigates in the hopes of finding the killer and two attempts on her life don’t stop Nora even though Max, who has arrived on the scene, begs her to leave it to the police to find the murderer.
Within the group there are plenty of suspects from a land deal that went south causing some members to lose money to Alan’s in laws who grow and export marijuana to the United States. Nora is a strong willed woman who does what she believes is best even if it means getting Max angry at her. Helen Barer has written an endearing and charming cozy populated with quirky characters.
Bite The Moon
Dianne Fanning
Five Star, July 2007, $25.95, 281
ISBN 1594145490
While waiting in a fast food hamburger jaunt for her husband, a hooded gunman kills one of her students working there and then her spouse when he enters. No longer satisfied with teaching, Molly Mullet joined the police academy and is now a police officer. She is moonlighting at the dance hall Solms Halle when she hears a commotion and sees blood leaking out of a closet. When the door is opened, the body of the manager of the band performing there is found.
Before a through investigation can be made, Bobby Wiggins the janitor who is mentally challenged is jailed but Molly knows the man with the mind of a four year old is innocent. She quits her job and offers to work gratis for the defense lawyer who has her working under his private investigator’s license. She receives threats warning her off the case but she continues making inquiries when another member of the band is killed. An anonymous caller places her at the crime scene and she is brought in for questioning. When a song writer who has a connection to the band is murdered Molly believes the same person killed all three men and she intends to figure out who it is; although she does not know the killer wants and needs to make her victim number four.
Molly’s belief in her childhood friend and her desire to have the real killer caught makes her an independent, strong willed and pig-headed woman who somehow makes the reader care about her. At first there is a plethora of suspects because the band manager had lots of enemies but as more people are killed, the suspects are whittled away and the investigation takes off in a new direction. Dianne Fanning has written an excellent police procedural even thought her protagonist is no longer on the force as she still thinks and works like a cop.
The Sonnet Lover
Carol Goodman
Ballantine, Jun 2007, $24.95
ISBN: 0345479572
Two decades ago then student Goodman Rose Asher fell in love with Professor Bruno Brunelli while she attended seminars at La Civetta in Tuscany, Italy where he lectured. However, in spite of their heated tryst, he stayed with his wife while she will always have the memory of Italy.
Rose teaches Renaissance poetry at Hudson College when she is invited as a guest professor and movie advisor on a film based on the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets at La Civetta where Bruno still works. The script was written by Robin Weiss and includes a Shakespeare-like sonnet found in the archives that implies Ginevra de Laura, daughter of a master mosaic artist, was the Dark Lady. However, soon after Rose arrives, Robin dies in what appears to be either a tragic accident or a suicide; the manuscript is missing. Rose refuses to accept her student killed himself while Bruno worries his son might be a killer.
The plausible solution to who the Dark Lady is makes this an intriguing entry in the Rose Asher academic amateur sleuth mysteries (see the GHOST ORCHID). However, the myriad of subplots from college president Mark Abrams to investigating Robin’s death and locating the missing sixteenth century manuscript that contains the sonnet to Bruno worrying about his son while considering renewing his romance with Rose somewhat makes the most intriguing element (the Dark Lady identification) not as front and centered as most readers will desire. Still THE SONNET LOVER is a well written whodunit with an intriguing possible resolution to a literary mystery.
Codename: Bikini
Christina Skye
HQN, Jul 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 0373772092
US Navy Foxfire specialist Lieutenant Trace O’Halloran has chips implanted inside him that enables him to be more than he could have been otherwise. The chips allow him to scan anything breathing with the scope of his psionic net.
However, on his last mission he was severely injured and his chips turned off with the understanding they will be reactivated once he heals. Feeling ready to return to the job, albeit without the use of his chips, Trace is assigned backup duty guarding a package heading to Puerto Vallarta, but he knows it is a gimmick to get him on R&R. For ten days Trace is to relax on the cruise ship, but he cannot stay calm as he feels that is inappropriate even for a backup and besides which he is attracted to pastry chef Gina Ryan whom he met on dry land. However, someone on board wants her dead although no motive seems to surface and only Trace can keep her safe, but she wonders about the cost to her heart.
Fans of Christina Skye will feel that the cruise is a homecoming as Carly McKay nee Sullivan of GOING OVERBOARD is on the ship (nice touch). The latest Codename romantic suspense thriller is fast-paced and filled with plenty of action with the irony being that the audience knows who wants to kill Gina and why. Adding angst to the tale is that Gina is going blind even as she has obtained a TV show (some readers might feel that subplot is going overboard to gain unnecessary empathy towards the lead female) although the enigmatic Izzy sees opportunity. Fans of the ongoing SEAL series will appreciate this terrific entry.
How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls
Zoey Dean
Warner, Jul 2007, $13.99
ISBN: 0446697184
After failing to make it in New York, Megan Smith wonders if she can make it anywhere. However, she buys time when she accepts a deal with the wealthy Baker matriarch. She will receive $1500 a week for tutoring the infamous party animals, her seventeen years old twin granddaughters, Sage and Rose, so that they score an acceptable passing SAT marks. The siblings have the incentive of inheriting $84 million if they succeed, but are not interested in boring book learning. If by some miracle the twins are accepted by their late parents’ alma mater Duke and it is not the first sign of the End of Days, Megan receives a $75000 bonus.
Megan and the twins behave like enemy combatants and the siblings reject any tutoring time that interferes with partying. They also demand Megan change her attitude by showing she cares beyond just a paycheck. As they argue and learn, Megan thinks she might make lot money by writing a book on her adventures with the Bad Baker brats.
This is an amusing coming of age tale, but not so much the twins as Megan finds her inner strengths. The chick lit style enables the audience to see how much Megan changes in the course of her tutoring. Although the twins are not the quite the terrors they should have been, as they are more like the students in Welcome Back Kotter, sort of impish and mischievous, but not nasty, contemporary readers will appreciate this humorous look at HOW TO TEACH FILTHY RICH GIRLS who live Cindi Lauper’s credo want to have fun.
Enslaved
Hope Tarr
Medallion, Jun 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 1933836121
In 1876 at the Roxbury House Orphanage in Kent, England, the four friends (Teenagers Patrick O’Rourke, Harry Stone and Gavin Carmichael and nine years old Daisy) meets in the attic whenever they can. Daisy believes they are a “real family” until Gavin’s hard-nosed grandfather Friend St. John arrives to take him home with him. Gavin promises Daisy he will never forget her.
In 1891 now a barrister Gavin has almost given up his search for Daisy as even a private detective has not been able to find her since she was adopted by the Lakes in 1877. Gavin’s two pals Harry and Patrick persuade him to attend a show starring Delilah du Lac. He is stunned to realize she is his Daisy; she is as shocked to realize he is her Saint Gavin. As they fall in love, Gavin remains upset she never wrote him and Daisy thinks he can do much better than her; however, both also dream that they can become a “real family”, but first one of them must have the courage to step forward and explain their doubts to the other.
The likable lead couple makes for a fine Victorian romance that will have the audience rooting for the pair to find a way to remain together. Character driven, Gavin and Daisy struggle to overcome their past and their perceptions of what is best for the other. Although Gavin’s his cold blooded interfering grandfather seems more like a Dickensian stereotype, the support cast especially his two pals Harray (see VANQUISHED) and Patrick (future tale) augment an enjoyable historical tale.
A Wanted Man
Linda Lael Miller
HQN, Jul 2007
ISBN: 037377236X
In 1905 in Stone Creek, Arizona Territory schoolteacher Lark Morgan and Marshal Rowdy Rhodes hide secrets from everyone including their attraction to one another. Lark and Rowdy firmly believes the other is a phony. He assumes she is a loose woman pretending to be a schoolmarm and she believes he is a gunfighter pretending to be a lawman. However, neither can resist the lure of horse blankets as they try to kiss the truth out of the other.
However, trouble is coming to Stone Creek via train robbers. Ranger Sam O’Ballivan assigns Rowdy to catch the thieves. However Lark’s darkest secret surfaces as the outlaws arrive in Stone Creek. Only Rowdy can keep her safe from the abuse of her past, but he may not survive High Noon.
Although the twentieth century seems too late for a tale of the Old West (keep in mind that Wyatt Earp died in 1929), using 1905 as a setting adds freshness to a fine western romance that fans readers will enjoy as two people attracted to one another hide secrets from one another. The lead couple is a fine pairing as each falls in love even as they suspect the other of duplicity. Though revelations and resolution seem too simple, Linda Lael Miller provides an entertaining early twentieth century romantic suspense.
Andre Norton
Starscape (Tor), Feb 2007, $5.99
ISBN: 0765353024
Chris Fitton’s father and Nan Mallory’s mother marry leaving their stunned twelve year old offspring to stay with Aunt Elizabeth for six months while their parents gallivant in Mexico. Both children are used to living with someone else; whereas Chris stayed at boarding schools, Nan was raised by her grandma, who has moved into a senior citizen’s community in which children can visit for short times, but cannot stay. At a nearby store, Chris finds the model of the Red Hart Inn. At night while asleep and dreaming, Chris and Nan believe they have traveled to the real Red Hart.
“The King’s Hunters”. During the rule of King James, Chris and Nan try to save the innkeeper accused of being a priest who if true illegally owns the Red Hart Inn which is punishable by death.
“The Gentlemen”. The smugglers seek the wounded excise officer in order to kill him before he can identify them to authorities; he hides in the Red Hart Inn where Chris and Nan try to keep him safe.
“Hue and Cry”. When the fire burned down Squire Mallory’s barn, Chris is accused of committing the arson that almost killed several people. Bow Street runner Harry Hawkins, a friend of the family, tries to prove the lad is innocent before an angry mob takes justice into its own hands.
This reprint of a 1970s young adult tale is character driven as in between their adventures; Nan and Chris have problems at home and at school. They feel like they do not belong anywhere and reject being step-siblings. The most popular girl in class wants Nan as a friend, but at an exorbitant cost; the most popular boy in the school picks on Chris. However, their time travel “dreams” that they have shared provide confidence for both to seek the right thing. Thus the great Andre Norton provides the audience with a strong fantasy wrapped inside a poignant family drama.
Fitness Kills
Helen Barer
Five Star, July 2007, $25.95, 207 pp.
ISBN 1594145877
Max and Nora have each other but their differences make them separate. She thinks he is too controlling and dominating and looks at her career as a food critic and columnist as fluff. She takes a job at Rancho de las Flores in Baja, California in order to revamp the old fashioned vegetarian recipes and when she leaves she will write a book on the new food served at the spa. The first couple of weeks she is lonely because the chef doesn’t want her to make changes.
During her third week there is a group of people who go from spa to spa around the country. Nora immediately likes millionaire businessman Alison Evans and Cece who takes the instructor under their wings. One of the group never shows up and his body is found on Mount Chuchuma, his head injury the cause of death. They are not sure if it is an accident or murder until Cece imbibes a drink with her name on it and dies instantly. It is obvious she is poisoned and Nora believes the same person also killed Alan. She investigates in the hopes of finding the killer and two attempts on her life don’t stop Nora even though Max, who has arrived on the scene, begs her to leave it to the police to find the murderer.
Within the group there are plenty of suspects from a land deal that went south causing some members to lose money to Alan’s in laws who grow and export marijuana to the United States. Nora is a strong willed woman who does what she believes is best even if it means getting Max angry at her. Helen Barer has written an endearing and charming cozy populated with quirky characters.
Bite The Moon
Dianne Fanning
Five Star, July 2007, $25.95, 281
ISBN 1594145490
While waiting in a fast food hamburger jaunt for her husband, a hooded gunman kills one of her students working there and then her spouse when he enters. No longer satisfied with teaching, Molly Mullet joined the police academy and is now a police officer. She is moonlighting at the dance hall Solms Halle when she hears a commotion and sees blood leaking out of a closet. When the door is opened, the body of the manager of the band performing there is found.
Before a through investigation can be made, Bobby Wiggins the janitor who is mentally challenged is jailed but Molly knows the man with the mind of a four year old is innocent. She quits her job and offers to work gratis for the defense lawyer who has her working under his private investigator’s license. She receives threats warning her off the case but she continues making inquiries when another member of the band is killed. An anonymous caller places her at the crime scene and she is brought in for questioning. When a song writer who has a connection to the band is murdered Molly believes the same person killed all three men and she intends to figure out who it is; although she does not know the killer wants and needs to make her victim number four.
Molly’s belief in her childhood friend and her desire to have the real killer caught makes her an independent, strong willed and pig-headed woman who somehow makes the reader care about her. At first there is a plethora of suspects because the band manager had lots of enemies but as more people are killed, the suspects are whittled away and the investigation takes off in a new direction. Dianne Fanning has written an excellent police procedural even thought her protagonist is no longer on the force as she still thinks and works like a cop.
The Sonnet Lover
Carol Goodman
Ballantine, Jun 2007, $24.95
ISBN: 0345479572
Two decades ago then student Goodman Rose Asher fell in love with Professor Bruno Brunelli while she attended seminars at La Civetta in Tuscany, Italy where he lectured. However, in spite of their heated tryst, he stayed with his wife while she will always have the memory of Italy.
Rose teaches Renaissance poetry at Hudson College when she is invited as a guest professor and movie advisor on a film based on the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets at La Civetta where Bruno still works. The script was written by Robin Weiss and includes a Shakespeare-like sonnet found in the archives that implies Ginevra de Laura, daughter of a master mosaic artist, was the Dark Lady. However, soon after Rose arrives, Robin dies in what appears to be either a tragic accident or a suicide; the manuscript is missing. Rose refuses to accept her student killed himself while Bruno worries his son might be a killer.
The plausible solution to who the Dark Lady is makes this an intriguing entry in the Rose Asher academic amateur sleuth mysteries (see the GHOST ORCHID). However, the myriad of subplots from college president Mark Abrams to investigating Robin’s death and locating the missing sixteenth century manuscript that contains the sonnet to Bruno worrying about his son while considering renewing his romance with Rose somewhat makes the most intriguing element (the Dark Lady identification) not as front and centered as most readers will desire. Still THE SONNET LOVER is a well written whodunit with an intriguing possible resolution to a literary mystery.
Codename: Bikini
Christina Skye
HQN, Jul 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 0373772092
US Navy Foxfire specialist Lieutenant Trace O’Halloran has chips implanted inside him that enables him to be more than he could have been otherwise. The chips allow him to scan anything breathing with the scope of his psionic net.
However, on his last mission he was severely injured and his chips turned off with the understanding they will be reactivated once he heals. Feeling ready to return to the job, albeit without the use of his chips, Trace is assigned backup duty guarding a package heading to Puerto Vallarta, but he knows it is a gimmick to get him on R&R. For ten days Trace is to relax on the cruise ship, but he cannot stay calm as he feels that is inappropriate even for a backup and besides which he is attracted to pastry chef Gina Ryan whom he met on dry land. However, someone on board wants her dead although no motive seems to surface and only Trace can keep her safe, but she wonders about the cost to her heart.
Fans of Christina Skye will feel that the cruise is a homecoming as Carly McKay nee Sullivan of GOING OVERBOARD is on the ship (nice touch). The latest Codename romantic suspense thriller is fast-paced and filled with plenty of action with the irony being that the audience knows who wants to kill Gina and why. Adding angst to the tale is that Gina is going blind even as she has obtained a TV show (some readers might feel that subplot is going overboard to gain unnecessary empathy towards the lead female) although the enigmatic Izzy sees opportunity. Fans of the ongoing SEAL series will appreciate this terrific entry.
How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls
Zoey Dean
Warner, Jul 2007, $13.99
ISBN: 0446697184
After failing to make it in New York, Megan Smith wonders if she can make it anywhere. However, she buys time when she accepts a deal with the wealthy Baker matriarch. She will receive $1500 a week for tutoring the infamous party animals, her seventeen years old twin granddaughters, Sage and Rose, so that they score an acceptable passing SAT marks. The siblings have the incentive of inheriting $84 million if they succeed, but are not interested in boring book learning. If by some miracle the twins are accepted by their late parents’ alma mater Duke and it is not the first sign of the End of Days, Megan receives a $75000 bonus.
Megan and the twins behave like enemy combatants and the siblings reject any tutoring time that interferes with partying. They also demand Megan change her attitude by showing she cares beyond just a paycheck. As they argue and learn, Megan thinks she might make lot money by writing a book on her adventures with the Bad Baker brats.
This is an amusing coming of age tale, but not so much the twins as Megan finds her inner strengths. The chick lit style enables the audience to see how much Megan changes in the course of her tutoring. Although the twins are not the quite the terrors they should have been, as they are more like the students in Welcome Back Kotter, sort of impish and mischievous, but not nasty, contemporary readers will appreciate this humorous look at HOW TO TEACH FILTHY RICH GIRLS who live Cindi Lauper’s credo want to have fun.
Enslaved
Hope Tarr
Medallion, Jun 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 1933836121
In 1876 at the Roxbury House Orphanage in Kent, England, the four friends (Teenagers Patrick O’Rourke, Harry Stone and Gavin Carmichael and nine years old Daisy) meets in the attic whenever they can. Daisy believes they are a “real family” until Gavin’s hard-nosed grandfather Friend St. John arrives to take him home with him. Gavin promises Daisy he will never forget her.
In 1891 now a barrister Gavin has almost given up his search for Daisy as even a private detective has not been able to find her since she was adopted by the Lakes in 1877. Gavin’s two pals Harry and Patrick persuade him to attend a show starring Delilah du Lac. He is stunned to realize she is his Daisy; she is as shocked to realize he is her Saint Gavin. As they fall in love, Gavin remains upset she never wrote him and Daisy thinks he can do much better than her; however, both also dream that they can become a “real family”, but first one of them must have the courage to step forward and explain their doubts to the other.
The likable lead couple makes for a fine Victorian romance that will have the audience rooting for the pair to find a way to remain together. Character driven, Gavin and Daisy struggle to overcome their past and their perceptions of what is best for the other. Although Gavin’s his cold blooded interfering grandfather seems more like a Dickensian stereotype, the support cast especially his two pals Harray (see VANQUISHED) and Patrick (future tale) augment an enjoyable historical tale.
A Wanted Man
Linda Lael Miller
HQN, Jul 2007
ISBN: 037377236X
In 1905 in Stone Creek, Arizona Territory schoolteacher Lark Morgan and Marshal Rowdy Rhodes hide secrets from everyone including their attraction to one another. Lark and Rowdy firmly believes the other is a phony. He assumes she is a loose woman pretending to be a schoolmarm and she believes he is a gunfighter pretending to be a lawman. However, neither can resist the lure of horse blankets as they try to kiss the truth out of the other.
However, trouble is coming to Stone Creek via train robbers. Ranger Sam O’Ballivan assigns Rowdy to catch the thieves. However Lark’s darkest secret surfaces as the outlaws arrive in Stone Creek. Only Rowdy can keep her safe from the abuse of her past, but he may not survive High Noon.
Although the twentieth century seems too late for a tale of the Old West (keep in mind that Wyatt Earp died in 1929), using 1905 as a setting adds freshness to a fine western romance that fans readers will enjoy as two people attracted to one another hide secrets from one another. The lead couple is a fine pairing as each falls in love even as they suspect the other of duplicity. Though revelations and resolution seem too simple, Linda Lael Miller provides an entertaining early twentieth century romantic suspense.
