Bonus Review: The Biscuit Witch

The Biscuit Witch

A Crossroads Café novella, 
Book One of The MacBrides
By Deborah Smith

Publisher: 

Belle Bridge Books

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Tallulah Bankhead MacBride is on the run. Her daughter’s father, a New York celebrity chef, is determined to stop the rumors that he has never even seen his five-year-old daughter. Tal is equally determined to protect her child from the man who is “equal parts Bully, Braggart, and All-around Self-Centered jerk.” When an altercation involving cupcakes ends in a warrant for Tal’s arrest, she and her daughter take to the road. Tal needs a sanctuary, and since her sister in California is too far away, she heads toward the place she once called home, the mountains of North Carolina, northwest of Ashville, where her cousin Delta Whittlespoon owns the Crossroads Café.

Delta is away in New York, but the eccentric population of the community proves more than a match for the hired guns the jerky chef has sent after Tal. It turns out that the Crossroads Café needs Tal as much as she needs a safe place to hide. The biscuits Delta shipped from New York have been routed wrongly, and hungry hordes of tourists are scheduled to arrive expecting to be served the world-famous biscuits. Nobody can bake biscuits to match Delta’s--nobody except Tal who, like Delta herself, is a hereditary biscuit witch who can make biscuits by the secret recipe of their common ancestress, Mary Eve Nettie, the wild woman of Wild Woman Ridge. Perhaps Tal can find a place to belong.

The staunchest defender of Tal and her daughter Eve is another beneficiary of Delta’s benevolence and willingness to extend cousinhood to the most remote family connections. Douglas Firth, a whistle-blowing veterinarian from Scotland via Florida, is the third cousin twice removed of Delta’s husband, Sheriff Pike Whittlespoon. That connection is all Delta needs to offer Douglas a place to call home and a job as vet when he is cast out of wealthy racing circles. It takes scarcely more than a second look for the red-haired biscuit whisperer and five-year-old Eve to own the heart of this Scotsman. He opens his home and the ghost town where it is located to Tal and Eve. But Douglas and Tal have stories to share, secrets to unravel, and enemies to defeat before Tal can believe in a future that includes home, family, and a love bigger than her hungry dreams.

“The Biscuit Witch” is the first of a new, three-part novel from Deborah Smith, her first since A Gentle Rain (2007). Smith takes her readers back to the world of A Crossroads Café (2006), a place where the eccentric is ordinary and where outcasts, misfits, and other assorted lost souls find healing, wholeness, and home. The point of view alternates between Tal and Douglas, a technique that expands the reader’s experience.

I loved everything about “The Biscuit Witch”—its quirky characters, its humor of word and situation, the spirit of the large-hearted Delta that saturates the scenes even in her absence, a sense of place so strong that I felt the late November chill and smelled the baking biscuits, and the lyrical prose that touched my heart like an old song from a half-remembered dream. The touch of magical realism was an added delight. According to Flannery O’Connor, “The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet.” Deborah Smith has found that crossroads, and she takes her reader there.

When I’m 103 and rocking on the porch of the local nursing home with the latest reading device filled with favorite romance novels and promising new ones in hand, I’ll still be wondering why Deborah Smith’s books aren’t on the bookshelves, print or digital, of every romance reader. Her characters, imperfect and past-haunted, are gloriously real and infinitely interesting. That description applies not only to Tal and Douglas but also to an impressive cast of secondary characters, including Tal’s sister, Gabby (Greta Garbo MacBride), the pickle queen, and her brother, Gus (Groucho Marx MacBride), the kitchen charmer, whose stories will be told in parts two and three. 

If you’ve never read Deborah Smith, “The Biscuit Witch” is a terrific introduction. The Crossroads Café, the novel in which Delta Whittlespoon first appears, is also a powerful and richly emotional tale. The digital version is on sale for $1.99 through the end of this month. I highly recommend both. And if you want more recommendations, A Place to Call Home is one of my all-time top ten favorite romances, and A Gentle Rain, Charming Grace, Sweet Hush, When Venus Fell, and On Bear Mountain all get five-star ratings from me.

Are there writers you love who deserve a much larger audience than the one they have? Who? 

Tuesday Review: Summer in Napa

Summer in Napa

By Marina Adair

Publisher: Montlake

Release Date: May 14, 2013

Alexis Moreau is back in St. Helena, California. Once the golden girl of her hometown, she is returning with a divorce decree so new the ink is barely dry and with her self-esteem in tatters. Her faithless ex was supposed to be her soul mate and forever love, but Lexi didn’t realize there was an expiration date on her high school romance that morphed into marriage. Now former husband Jeff is already someone else’s husband, and there is no room for Lexi in the New York restaurant she helped to make a success. She’s hoping that fulfilling an older dream of turning her grandmother’s patisserie into a bistro will give her new purpose. But first she has to cope with a string of unwanted dates her matchmaking grandmother arranges and the ambivalent feelings Marco DeLuca, he ex-husband’s best friend and perennial best man is evoking.

Marco DeLuca has always known that Lexi Moreau was off-limits for him, no matter how much she appealed to his libido and to his heart. He needs to focus on getting the old hotel he is transforming ready for the Summer Wine Showdown. Besides, even though technically Lexi is free now, Marco knows that getting involved with her would violate the man rules of romance. Or so he keeps telling himself. But although his head knows he should ignore Lexi, the rest of him is not getting the message.

When the two agree to fake a summer romance, it soon becomes clear that intentions are just tinder for the sparks that fly when this combustible twosome is together. Summer and wine and chocolate and a hero and heroine who finally have a chance to rectify the bad choices their hearts made earlier—it sounds like a perfect recipe for romance to me.

I finished Kissing Under the Mistletoe, Adair’s first book in her St. Helena’s Vineyard series giggling over the abundance of Rudolphs, and I started the second book giggling over Lexi’s window adventure. Both books mix laughter with family dynamics, small-town atmosphere, and sigh-worthy moments to produce just the kind of entertaining escape many romance readers are looking for. 

One of the things I liked best about the book is that there is a balance of fraternal support and friction among the DeLuca brothers, a blend I find more believable than the idyllic sibling relationships I sometimes see in romance. I admit I found the family’s conviction that Marcus was destined to be a player and a screw-up irritating. But I know that once a family member is cast in a role, breaking out of it is nearly impossible. So I accepted their actions as credible even when I deplored them. 

If you are a fan of light romances that are fun to read with likeable primary characters and some scene-stealing secondary characters (a child in the first book, Marco’s dog Wingman in this one), I recommend Marina Adair. I look forward to seeing more of the DeLuca family.

Romance fiction, historical and contemporary, is filled with matchmaking characters. My favorite matchmaker is probably Daniel MacGregor from the MacGregor family series by Nora Roberts. Who is your favorite fictional matchmaker?

I will be away from Just Janga for the next ten days. I have been blogging for more than five years without taking an extended break, and I need some time to catch up with my work and my life. I will return on May 14 with a new Tuesday Review. I hope you'll join me then.

Tuesday Review: Beauty and the Blacksmith

Beauty and the Blacksmith

By Tessa Dare

Publisher: Avon Impulse

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Diana Highwood is the family beauty. It was Diana’s asthma that brought Mrs. Highwood and her daughters to Spindle Cove. After two years in the seaside village, Diana’s asthma has disappeared, but her mother’s conviction that Diana’s beauty will win the heart of a titled gentleman shows no signs of diminishing. Mrs. Highwood would be horrified if she knew that Diana’s thoughts are filled not with elusive dukes and earls but with the village blacksmith, one Aaron Dawes—his arms, his lips, his voice. In fact, Diana manufactures reasons for visiting the smith whose virility generates more heat than the forge in the opinion of the proper Miss Highwood.

Aaron Dawes may work with his hands, but he’s no simpleton. He realizes that the beautiful Diana is making excuses to see him. Aaron is not indifferent to the beautiful Diana, and it’s more than her beauty that attracts him. He enjoys playing big brother to most of the young women who have invaded Spindle Cove, but there’s nothing the least fraternal about his feelings for Diana. However, fully conscious of the social chasm between a lady and a blacksmith, he resists temptation even when a little whiskey emboldens Diana to ask for a kiss. He’s less noble when a second opportunity presents itself, ironically arranged by Diana’s mother.

I’ve loved Spindle Cove since I first heard the premise, and each novel and novella has given me more reasons for Spindle Cove to be one of my favorite historical series. “The Beauty and the Blacksmith” is a delight. It is joyous to watch Diana throw off the constraints that have limited her and become her own person, and Aaron is a wonderful hero whose physical appeal is only exceeded by his tenderness and wisdom. One of my favorite moments occurs when he teaches Diana to drive, a scene that reveals his practicality and his concern and respect for women. When Diana says that shooting lessons make the women of Spindle Cove feel strong and in control, Aaron responds, “I’m not saying it’s bad. But there’s feeling powerful, and then there’s actually taking the reins. There are a great many situations a woman might do well to drive away from. Very few where it’s advisable to shoot her way out.”

Dare’s use of humor is one of her most consistent strengths, one that is sometimes underappreciated. This novella is rich with humor. I have serious questions about the sense of humor of any reader who can get through the cooking scene without laughing out loud. The sensuality level of the novella is high, but the love scenes are never merely titillation. If you are a fan of the Spindle Cove books, you probably have this preordered. Prepare to enjoy every page. If you haven’t tried Tessa Dare’s books, this taste is sure to whet your appetite for more. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Dare plans to write a story for Charlotte, the third Highwood sister, one of the lesser stars of “The Beauty and the Blacksmith.”

Aaron is definitely not the typical historical romance hero, and I love him all the more because he’s not. Do you like working class heroes the historical romances you read, or do you prefer your heroes with blue blood and a title?

Bonus Review: Wind Chime Point

Wind Chime Point

By Sherryl Woods

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Gabriella is the Castle sister most driven to win the approval of her emotionally distant father. She chose her career with this in mind, and she has devoted herself to being the best in her job as a public relations executive for a biomedical research company. But an unplanned pregnancy leaves her without a job and her boyfriend’s response to her pregnancy is to forget their five-year relationship and remove himself from the picture as rapidly as possible. What’s a girl to do when her perfect life lies in pieces and she has major decisions to make? If you are a Castle, the answer is to leave her Raleigh, north Carolina apartment and head to the Outer Banks and Sand Castle Bay where her grandmother, Cora Jane Castle, will supply hugs, food, and advice and her sisters Emily and Samantha will be her support system while they plan Emily’s wedding.

Wade Johnson, cabinet maker and wood carver extraordinaire, fell for Gabi at first sight, and even a visibly pregnant Gabi fails to dim his interest. Gabi is not interested in a new relationship or in being the latest Castle subject to her grandmother’s matchmaking. But Cora Jane is an irresistible force, and Wade’s good looks and gallantry prove irresistible too. The HEA is in sight, but there are obstacles that must be overcome first. Gabi wants the best for her baby and that may mean adoption. Wade still has unresolved issues related to the wife and unborn child who died in an accident, and he has a bossy sister bent on protecting her brother.

Wind Chime Point is the second book in Sherryl Woods’s Ocean Breeze series. Once again the author gives her readers likeable characters in a charming setting with a sweet love story as the main course and a side dish of family dynamics.  Fans of the first book in the series, Sand Castle Bay, will be pleased to see Emily and Boone in the midst of wedding plans, and a secondary plot involving a deserving teen befriended by Wade and the Castle family adds interest. This is a gentle, agreeable read that contains few surprises.

I was surprised—and not happily--by the speed with which Gabi and Wade begin having quite intimate conversations. The two are mere acquaintances when Gabi returns to the island, and yet he asks about the father of her child immediately.  And she gives him a detailed answer. The conversation at that stage felt off to me, and it seemed out of character for Wade, an extraordinarily sensitive man. Except for that scene and Wade’s sister whom I found irritating, I liked this story well enough to look forward to Sea Glass Island, Samantha’s book, which releases on May 28. It promises a more complicated hero and the resolution to some sibling tension between Emily and Samantha.

Two of Sherryl Woods’s most popular series are her Sweet Magnolia novels (ten books) and her Chesapeake Shores stories (nine books). The Ocean Breeze books evidently will end with the third book. Do you prefer short series—trilogies and quartets—or are you happy to see a favorite series run to a dozen books or more?

Bonus Review: The Apple Orchard

The Apple Orchard

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Tess Delaney, a provenance specialist for a prestigious auction house, finds her career rewarding and often exciting, but her personal life is less satisfying. Raised by her beloved Irish grandmother and her mother whose own career required constant travel, Tess satisfies her need for connection by collecting objects that have a history, often objects with a family story. With her grandmother dead and her mother as distant as ever, Tess depends upon a small core of friends in lieu of family, but her best friend’s recent engagement signals that those relationships are changing. 

Just at the moment when she is feeling most alone, Tess learns that the grandfather she never knew is in critical condition in a hospital in Sonoma County, California, and that he has named Tess as heir to half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre working orchard with a house and outbuildings in a town called Archangel. Her co-heir is Isabel Johansen, a half-sister Tess never dreamed she had.

Dominic Rossi, banker, vintner, devoted father of two with his ex-wife, and executor of the estate of his friend and neighbor Magnus Johansen, is the one who finds Tess and gives her the news for which she is totally unprepared. When the stress of Dominic’s news precipitates a medical emergency that leaves Tess with a diagnosis (generalized anxiety disorder) and treatment (a radical change in lifestyle), she allows herself to be persuaded to fly to Archangel with Dominic. Bella Vista is a world far removed from anything Tess has ever known. Feeling an unexpected tie to her vulnerable sister and to the complicated and label-defying Dominic, Tess also finds the Archangel community endlessly fascinating and appealing. Soon she is using the skills that have ensured her professional success to uncover generations of secrets and the missing treasure that may save this world she has come to love.   

I started reading the books of Susan Wiggs when she was writing historical romance, and she remained an autobuy author for me when she moved to novels that are a hybrid of women’s fiction and contemporary romance. One of the things I have always loved about Wiggs’s books is her ability to weave together story strands, each forming its own pattern and yet integrated into a rich and complex whole. The Apple Orchard is a splendid example of this gift, taking the reader back to Magnus Johansen’s past in occupied Denmark during World War II, weaving in the story of one of Tess’s clients, encompassing a forbidden love story in the next generation, and adding the complications of Tess and Dominic. The story is compelling, the characters are vibrant and appealing, and the world of the novel is one in which I wanted to linger. My favorite books engage both my brain and my heart, and this one qualifies. I highly recommend it.

Food always figures prominently in the contemporary novels of Susan Wiggs. I confess Wiggs persuades me I can smell and taste the food her characters prepare. I’m not much of a cook, but I have tried some of the recipes she includes. Do you like to see recipes included in novels? Have you ever tested any in your own kitchen?

Tuesday Review: Half Moon Hill

Half Moon Hill

By Toni Blake

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Anna Romo loves her newly discovered family, but sometimes she finds them overwhelming. Despite her history, she still feels like an outsider in Destiny. Her solution is to devote her time and energy to renovations on the Victorian house she bought with the plan to transform it into a bed and breakfast. With the help of some new friends, she has completed the work on the interior, but the exterior still needs major work. She also realizes that she needs to master some recipes for the delectation of her future guests. With this thought in mind, she goes berry picking.

 Duke Dawson has found a sanctuary in an old cabin secluded in the woods behind the house on Half Moon Hill. Wounded in body and spirit, struggling with survivor’s guilt and the belief that his scarred face renders him monstrous, he has become a recluse, cutting himself off even from Lucky Romo, his closest friend.

When Anna’s berry picking brings her into contact with the wild man in the woods, all she can think about is running for her life. She does not recognize her brother’s friend and fellow biker in the hairy derelict before her. In fact, when he calls her “Daisy Duke,” she’s convinced he’s mad. Even after he identifies himself, connects the “Daisy Duke” name to the shorts Anna is wearing, and explains he just wants to be left alone, Anna finds it hard to believe this bearded man is the Duke Dawson she had met earlier.

Duke insists on taking care of Anna’s sprained ankle, and she bakes him a blackberry cobbler as a thank you gift. This exchange of favors leads to an agreement that Duke will help Anna with the repairs to her house, and she will say nothing of his presence in her woods—not even to Lucky.  In addition to painting, the house needs a new roof and work on the gutters, porch, trim, and shutters. Soon Anna and Lucky are spending a great deal time of together, and it doesn’t take long for the spark that ignited in Anna’s woods to become a consuming conflagration. But can Duke overcome his demons and accept Anna’s love, or will Anna find that her love story mirrors the sad tale of another house-and-cabin pair of lovers that is related in the old diary she discovers in her house?

Half Moon Hill is the sixth book in Toni Blake’s Destiny series. In the fifth book, Willow Springs, readers are introduced to Anna Romo, the sister of Lucky and Mike who was abducted as a five-year-old. Anna is not a likeable character in that book, and readers who have followed the series may find it difficult at first to warm up to her in the heroine’s role. But Blake reveals her vulnerabilities soon enough so that the sympathies of most readers will be awakened within early chapters. Duke’s history is revealed gradually as he opens up more and more to Anna, and each layer that is uncovered awakens new sympathies. In the case of his family, I wish the disclosures had been more fully detailed. I was frustrated by the unanswered questions about the family dynamics.

As is typical with a Toni Blake book, the sensuality level is high. The love scenes are frequent, hot, and graphic, but they also serve to reveal character and advance the plot. Blake uses elements of Beauty and the Beast and, more obviously, The Phantom of the Opera, in this story. I was happy that the love triangle that is suggested never really develops because Anna is a woman who knows what she wants and refuses to play games. The “other man” is a nice guy with definite hero potential, so I won’t be surprised to meet him later in the series.

Favorites from earlier Destiny books make appearances. There is a subplot that shows even BFFs and HEA couples sometimes hit a rough patch in their relationships. But none of these appearances distract the reader from Anna and Duke’s story. Just the reverse: they serve to enrich the primary characters.

I’ve been reading the Destiny books since the first one, and overall have found the characters appealing and their stories engaging. Willow Springs was a bit disappointing, but Half Moon Hill gave me exactly what I expect from a Toni Blake book—sweetness mixed with a super size of sizzle and an emotional journey that left me sighing and smiling.

Today’s review makes two in a row set in the Midwest, something of an anomaly in settings for small-town romances, which seem to be disproportionately set in the Northwest and Texas. What’s your favorite fictional small town?