Saturday Review: A Slight Change of Plan

A Slight Change of Plan

By Dee Ernst

Publisher: Montlake

Release Date: 

November 19, 2013

Kate Freemont Everett is fifty-five years old and in the process of crafting a new stage in her life. Her husband, a workaholic ob-gyn, died of a heart attack eight years ago. Kate had reached the conclusion that their marriage was short of satisfactory before his death, and while she grieved his premature passing, she settled into widowhood without major difficulties. Her husband’s workaholic ways left her amply provided for financially, so she has no money worries. But now her youngest child, a computer geek, is on the verge of graduating from college and will soon be apartment hunting with his first serious girlfriend; her middle child and only daughter, a veterinarian, is about to be married to her long-time boyfriend; and her oldest is a successful cartoonist living happily with his partner in a west Village apartment.

It’s not that Kate’s life is empty. She has a successful career as a tax lawyer, she is close to her kids and to her younger sister, and her best friend of forty-eight years is always available for lunches and shopping and the kind of open, cabbages-and-kings conversations that every woman needs. She has two cats, Seven and Eight, and a dog named Boone, part spaniel, part terrier, who thinks she’s a cat, for furry companionship. But despite her blessings, Kate is ready for a change. She left her job with a nice severance package, she is prepared to sell the house where she brought up her children and let someone else worry about cleaning and upkeep on five bedrooms, three and a half baths, three-car garage, pool, and finished basement. Kate wants a condo with health club privileges and walking trails for Boone. She also wants someone to share her life, inside and outside the bedroom.  She hasn’t had a date in more than thirty years, but her sister has persuaded her to register on an online dating site.

Kate finds out that Robbie Burns was right about plans “Gang aft agley,” although disruptions to Kate’s plans--things like a wedding with a fraction of the guests she thinks should be invited, a genius son and his even greater genius girlfriend sharing her condo, a wrinkle in her cartoonists son’s perfect relationship, and her estranged mother moving into her basement—are not exactly grief-provoking or painful exactly. Maybe Robbie was only half right. After some disasters, her dating life is improving. In fact, it’s getting downright complicated. There’s the online match, who is a nice guy, and the sex is good, but he’s a bit controlling. Then there’s the blast from the past, the Real True Love who has remained in her memories and in her heart. Then there’s the interesting Englishman, but his ex-wife is a real bitch, and she also happens to be the future mother-in-law of Kate’s daughter. Kate’s calendar and her life are full, but her plan? Let’s just say it’s changing.

Last year I did something I rarely do. I bought Dee Ernst’s debut novel, Better Off Without Him (2010), an eBook, without having read a single review or having one friend recommend it. I bought it based solely on the description of a romance writer with teenage children going through a divorce with the help of her friends and a sexy plumber, and I consider it one of my smartest book buys of 2012. I loved the book. I laughed so loudly that my family asked me to share the joke. When I saw A Slight Change of Plan on NetGalley, I eagerly requested the privilege of reviewing it, another smart decision. A Slight Change of Plan is a worthy follow-up to Better Off Without Him.

I think anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy this book, but I think it resonates particularly with women old enough to have their own fund of mixed memories, hard-earned experience, and reservoirs of love for all the family and friends and lovers, old and new, who own a piece of their hearts.

Often I found myself pausing to reread a sentence or a page. Sometimes the pause was to extend the moment of laughter, but more often it was to luxuriate in the feeling that I was sharing something special. The novel is written in first person, and so all that the reader knows is filtered through Kate’s voice.  For some readers that may present a problem, but it is not one for me. I love the intimacy of the first-person point of view. It gave me the feeling that Kate was a person I knew well and liked a great deal and the feeling that Ernst is an author who knows and understands the life I have lived, the lives my friends have lived.

When Kate is clearing her house before moving, she finds that she has to dump some stuff.

I had to get rid of records. I had LPs dating back to the sixties—did you know that Sally Field released an album as the Flying Nun? Some of these were harder to get rid of than others, but, as Jeff pointed out, I had already downloaded everything of importance into my little MP3 player. Since I could now listen to every Dan Fogelberg song ever recorded without having to get up and flip anything over, out went the vinyl. Books were also a bit of a problem. So I just got rid of all of Adam’s and kept mine.

Kate was more disciplined that I. I tossed Sally Field, but I kept my Beatles albums on vinyl. I refuse to count the Dan Fogelberg songs on my playlists. And I almost never got the books packed because I kept stopping to reread favorite bits from various ones.

Then there’s the passage where Kate talks about her Real True Love, the one who left her. Her words struck what Faulkner called the “resonant strings of remembering.”

He was the one.

You never ever loved another man the way you loved him. And when it was over, he broke your heart like it would never be broken again.

Then there are the passages that just make me laugh. For example, this conversation between Kate and her best friend:

“This menopause thing is killing me. Just when I think my libido has taken a permanent vacation, it comes roaring back, and suddenly I miss sex. God, an orgasm is one of life’s few pleasures that isn’t harmful or illegal.”

Cheryl arched an eyebrow. “Don’t need a man for one of those,” she said.

“I know. But I’m tired of naming my vibrators so I have someone to thank.”

If you like romantic comedy that makes you laugh and smile and think and remember, I highly recommend A Slight Change of Plan. If you like it as much as I did, you can still get a digital copy of Better Off Without Him at a very reasonable price. And I’m wondering what’s next from Dee Ernst.

Do you like first person point of view in fiction? Or are you a reader who has a decided preference for third person stories?

Tuesday Review: Adventures in Parenthood

Adventures in Parenthood

By Dawn Atkins

Publisher: Harlequin 

(Superromance)

Release Date: 

November 1, 2013

Dixon Carter has depended on his older brother Howard as a constant, unchanging presence in his life. Even his place of employment, Bootstrap Academy, is the dream of Howard, who worked as a social worker for seventeen years before he and his schoolteacher wife, Brianna, started the job-training and placement agency to help workers in Phoenix displaced in a faltering economy. Dixon is left in charge of his twin nieces when Howard and Brianna take a rare vacation to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, the first time they have ever left their four-year-old daughters. Dixon is blindsided by the news that Howard and Brianna have been killed in an automobile accident as they were returning to Phoenix. Devastated by his own grief, he is also overwhelmed with the realization that he has suddenly become responsible for his nieces.

Aubrey Hanson can hardly contain her excitement about a potential sponsor that will allow her to continue her blog—Extreme Adventure Girl: Ordinary Girl on an Extraordinary Journey. Having just returned from reindeer racing in Norway, she resents every mile between L.A. and Phoenix that delays her sharing the news with her twin Brianna, the person who has shared all the important moments of her life. Aubrey’s good news would add another celebratory note to the celebration of Briana and Howard’s anniversary. Nothing could have prepared Aubrey for the news that awaits her when she arrives in Phoenix. Brianna and Howard are dead, and Ginger and Sienna are orphans. Instead of attending an anniversary party, Aubrey must help plan a funeral.

Both Dixon and Aubrey have lost the person dearest to them, and both are eager to assume the care of their young nieces.  But neither of them has any real understanding of all that parenting two little girls whose lives and hearts have been delivered a knockout blow. Despite Aubrey’s good intentions, she reluctantly admits that the lifestyle of constant travel and risk-taking imposed by her adventurous life makes her a poor candidate to be the girls’ primary guardian. Dixon, in contrast, is based in Phoenix, the girls’ home, with a stable routine. Moreover, he has been a regular part of their young lives, and their emotional attachment to him is strong. Clearly, it is in the best interest of the children that they remain in his care.

The two agree that Dixon will serve as guardian, but Aubrey will be involved in the girls’ life as much as possible. However, it’s not as simple as it sounds. First, the situation is complicated by Dixon and Aubrey’s history. They came within a heartbeat of having a fling at Howard and Brianna’s wedding, but Dixon’s native caution prevailed at the last minute. The chemistry between them remains potent, but given the differences in their lifestyles and personalities, avoiding temptation seems their wisest choice. And if their feelings don’t complicate matters enough, the disagreements over what risk-taker Audrey and risk-avoider Dixon think are best for Ginger and Sienna are vast. Are they too great to overcome when the happiness of four people is at stake?

Atkins provides a realistic view of grief and the difficulties of rebuilding lives after traumatic loss. Both Dixon and Aubrey are complex characters with personal histories that make it easy to understand why they have become the particular people they are. I also appreciated that after their almost-fling, they both went on with their lives. Both have been seriously involved with other people in the interim, and the fallout from those failed relationships adds to their wariness with one another. Ginger and Sienna are credibly portrayed in their reactions to their parents’ deaths and to the changes in their lives. Not only does Atkins avoid making them cardboard kids, but she also avoids making the twins carbon copies of each other. All of these characters change during the course of the story. Atkins does an admirable job of showing the difficulties of getting on with life after great loss while giving readers a solid romance at the same time. If you think category romance can’t be satisfying and substantive, you should give Adventures in Parenthood a try.

As an aunt and great-aunt whose nephews and nieces are important in my life, I like stories that show aunts and uncles playing significant parts. Most readers remember Auntie Mame, of course, but aside from her, who is your favorite fictional aunt or uncle.

Saturday Review: One Night with the Laird

One Night with the Laird

By Nicola Cornick

Publisher: Harlequin

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

They meet as strangers at a masquerade ball in Edinburgh and share one night of passion so powerful that neither of them can forget it. Both will be horrified when they discover the identity of their nameless lover.

Lady Mairi MacLeod is a beautiful widow with enormous responsibilities. Her husband, who inherited an impressive fortune from a nabob grandfather, left it all—the four homes, a dozen businesses, assorted bonds and investments, and various philanthropic ventures—in his widow’s control. But even these responsibilities are less weighty than the secret Mairi must protect, one that could plunge her and her aging in-laws into ruinous scandal and leave a mark on the proud MacLeod name. Mairi can hardly believe that the one night she surrenders to the temptation to add color and excitement to her life that the man she chose for her lover turned out to be Jack Rutherford, a rake she despises. “He was arrogant, self-assured, deplorably confident, all too well aware of his charm and the effect it had on every woman he met.”

Jack Rutherford was almost destroyed by the cost of loving and losing after the deaths of mother and sister, deaths for which he holds himself responsible. Only the intervention of his grandmother saved him from the abyss into which guilt, grief, and alcoholism were leading him. Having achieved sobriety and with a self-earned fortune, he makes certain his relationships with women are limited to satisfying sexual encounters from which he walks away with an untouched heart. He berates himself when three months after a single night with the seductive beauty he knows only as Rose, he still thinks of her, still desires her.

Jack is dismayed when his cousin Robert, Marquis of Methven, asks that Robert escort Lady Mairi MacLeod to Methven for the family house party to celebrate the christening of the second son born to Robert and his wife, the former Lady Lucy MacMorlan, in the three years of their marriage. Jack is not fond of family gatherings at best, and he and Lady Mairi have been at odds since she haughtily rejected Jack’s invitation to become his mistress shortly after the two met. Jack is convinced that Mairi is “too rich, too beautiful, and too clever.” But since he is convinced that Mairi will refuse his escort, he consents to Methven’s request that Jack make the offer. He is unprepared to discover that the scornful Mairi is the runaway lover whom he has been unable to forget, and he is furious when Mairi makes clear that the night they shared was an aberration that will not be repeated.

To everyone’s surprise, including his own, Jack comes to the rescue when Mairi’s enemies threaten her safety, to the point of pretending that he is betrothed to her. But once they are thrown into one another’s company, the explosive chemistry between them ensures complication neither is seeking. Jack and Mairi’s only chance for happiness lies in defeating the enemies plotting against Mairi and the defenses that two people scarred by past experiences have mounted to protect themselves.

One Night with the Laird is the second in Cornick’s Scottish Brides series, following The Lady and the Laird (Lucy and Robert’s story). It is a more sensual and more suspenseful story than the first book. Cornick’s deft touch with characterization is evident as both Mairi and Jack emerge as fully dimensional, sympathetic characters whose happiness readers root for. Some readers will be pleased to see that Jack’s armor against love is substantial enough not to be melted by lust, however hot the flames. His awareness that he loves Mairi comes slowly without his understanding the changes until late in the story. Others may think the HEA happens too abruptly.

If anyone offers a prize for the most sensual opening chapter in mainstream romance in 2013, One Night with the Laird deserves to be a leading candidate. And the sizzle (including one scene of the type that seems to have been added to oral sex as a necessary scene for a steamy rating) doesn’t end with the opening. Villains also abound, and the cardinal offender may come as a surprise. This is a solid addition to a strong series. I prefer the first book to the second, but my preference is a matter of personal taste. Readers who like their stories darker and sexier will likely prefer this second offering. While readers familiar with the first book will enjoy a richer context for Jack and Mairi’s story, the second book can be read as a standalone.

Claimed by the Laird, the story of Christina, the third MacMorlan sister, is scheduled for release in August 2014.

I am slowly coming around to careful consideration of the suggestion that readers would find a sensuality rating on romance novels useful. While some of my favorite romance authors write hot, I prefer not to be surprised by the sensuality level. What do you think?

Tuesday Review: Autumn in the Vineyard

Autumn in the Vineyard

By Marina Adair

Publisher: Montlake

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

Frankie Baudouin learned some painful lessons early in her life. Her grandfather just confirmed them when she chose to do something against his wishes and he kicked her out of the family business--and out of his life. But Sorrento Ranch, the most desirable acreage in Napa Valley, is Frankie’s chance to show her grandfather his mistake in letting her go and to fulfill her dream of producing her own boutique wine. The fact that she bought land that the DeLucas, rival vintners and  Baudouin enemies for more than half a century, are eager to own makes her purchase all the sweeter. Frankie is prepared to work hard, but she’s not prepared for Nate DeLuca to complicate her life again. Nate has a history of creating problems for Frankie, but this time she’s determined to win the battle. She has too much at stake to lose her land.

Nate DeLuca is looking forward to putting to use the land the DeLucas just bought fulfill his father’s dream. Nate has fond memories of teen years spent working with his dad trying to find the perfect blend for a dream wine the elder DeLuca called his “opus.” Now he and his brothers have plans to turn the twenty prime acres the family just paid an inflated $7.5 million for into the site of DeLuca’s premiere winery, Opus. Nate is surprised to find Francesca Baudouin on his land and claiming it as hers, but he’s confident that the DeLucas will prevail—at least until he discovers he has been unwittingly paid a platinum price for half the land he thought he was buying, acreage that was divided fifteen years ago. Still, knowing the Baudouin are cash-strapped, he feels certain he can persuade the volatile Frankie to sell.

When the two face off in court, they do so before a judge who is weary of the DeLuca- Baudouin feud, uses the fact that the property division splits the house in half to give Nate and Frankie thirty days to work thing out peacefully together before he takes action. Thirty days with two stubborn antagonists who know they are all wrong for one another but can’t escape the passion that simmers between them makes for an interesting, conflicted, and dangerous time.

Autumn in the Vineyard is the third book in Adair’s St. Helena Vineyard series. Readers familiar with the earlier books will recognize Frankie and Nate and remember the kiss that sent the sizzle-meter soaring in Kissing Under the Mistletoe. Frankie, with her ball-busting boots and motorcycle, is a tough cookie, but one with a soft center. The child of a divorce that left her feeling rejected and cut off from her father’s world, she longs to be loved and accepted for who she is. Nate is a fascinating contradiction—an easy-going charmer who prefers loving to fighting and an obsessive list-maker who has felt the need to exert control even in this limited way since his parents’ deaths.

I usually prefer friends-to-lovers stories to enemies-to-lovers, but I found both Frankie and Nate likeable, engaging characters. I believed in their conflict because it was based less on the feuding families than on their very different experiences and personalities. I especially  appreciated that Adair didn’t smooth out all the rough spots created by their differences with true love. One of the reasons I believe these two will endure is that they have accepted that love doesn’t mean never being irritated by or disappointed in the beloved. My favorite lines belong to Frankie’s wise spinster aunt: “It’s the liking part that’s difficult. Love, once it happens, is always there no matter how angry you get. But like, that takes compromise and honesty and understanding and a lot of hard work.”

Family dynamics are an important part of this story. I enjoyed watching the teasing and easy affection that bind the DeLuca brothers to one another and to the rest of their extended family, and I found Frankie’s more complicated relationship with her brothers and other family members interesting and credible. Part of the appeal is setting, both St, Helena as a particular place and the wine culture generally. Adair is generous with the details, giving the reader a strong sense of place.

There are four DeLuca brothers, and with Frankie and Nate settled, three of them now have their HEA. That leaves Trey, and his story will be available January 21—Be Mine Forever, a Valentine story just in time for Valentine’s Day. I look forward to another trip to St. Helena.

Some of my favorite series have involved families with wineries. In addition to Adair’s books, I love Susan Mallery’s Marcelli family, Christie Ridgway’s Baci sisters, and Kristan Higgins’s Hollands. And, although not a part of a series, I have The Vineyard by Barbara Delinsky and The Villa by Nora Roberts on a keeper shelf. Do you like wineries as settings? What’s your favorite?

Saturday Review: Short Takes (More Christmas Books)

A Fool’s Gold Christmas

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: October 29, 2013

A Fool’s Gold Christmas was released as a hardback in September 2012; it is being released as a mass market paperback and in digital format this month. It is the tenth book in the Fool’s Gold series, and it combines the two genres, romance and women’s fiction, in which Mallery has deservedly earned scores of fans.

The story centers on the romance between Evie Stryker, half-sister of Rafe (Summer Days), Shane (Summer Nights), and Clay (All Summer Long) and Dante Jefferson, Rafe’s business partner. Both Evie and Dante are in Fool’s Gold reluctantly: Evie because her brothers, guilty about the emotional distance between Evie and her family, insist on her recovering from an injury where they can see that she receives the care she needs; and Dante because when Rafe fell in love, he insisted on moving his business headquarters to Fool’s Gold. Both carry scars from their pasts. Individually, they are appealing characters, and together they are wonderful! I particularly enjoyed watching their relationship develop from strangers to friends to lovers.

Also important to the story is Evie’s estrangement from her mother. Romance fiction has good mothers and bad mothers in impressive numbers, but this may be the only good mother to three sons who is a very bad mother to her only daughter. May Stryker has her reasons, but my sympathy was all with Evie.

I wrote a full review of this book for the Romance Dish last year. You can access it here. I’ll just add that if you are a Fool’s Gold fan and missed this book last year, you will definitely want to read it this time. If you are just in the mood for a lovely Christmas read with seasonal themes and a sweet and sexy romance, I recommend A Fool’s Gold Christmas.

A Family for Christmas

By Winnie Griggs

Publisher: Harlequin (Love Inspired Historical)

Release Date: October 1, 2013

In 1895, Eve Hendricks, with little enthusiasm, is on her way to a job as a milliner’s assistant when she befriends Leo, a young boy traveling alone. When the train conductor, a man who lacks the milk of human kindness, finds that Leo is a stowaway, he ejects him from the train and leaves him at the train depot in Turnabout, Texas. Eve cannot bear to see Leo left with no one to care for him, so she leaves the train too. A Turnabout resident, Chance Dawson, observes the incident and is filled with admiration for Eve. He offers Eve and Leo refuge in his home, suitably chaperoned by an older friend, Dotty Epps.

As the name suggests, Turnabout is a place for new beginnings. All three primary characters have things in their past that cause others to see them as lacking worthiness, but Turnabout is a town of hardworking, neighborly people who are filled with the quality sadly lacking in the train conductor. Chance has already found a home in Turnabout, and he makes it possible for Eve and Leo to do so as well. With a little growth on all their parts, they find a family as well.

This is not a perfect book. The symbolism lacks subtlety, and the prose is sometimes pedestrian. But, framed by two holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and filled with faith, hope, and love and charming characters in a charming town, it is a sweet and heartwarming tale. Readers should be aware that A Family for Christmas is an Inspirational romance, and the characters are people for whom their faith and its disciplines of prayer and service are integral parts of their lives. It is also the third book in a series, but I have not read the earlier books and had no difficulty following the story. 

A Kiss Under the Mistletoe

By Jennifer Basye Sander

Publisher: Harlequin Nonfiction

Release Date: October 29, 2013

This is not a novel but rather a compilation of twenty-six true stories collected by Sander. The stories range from the sweetly romantic to the bittersweet to the heartbreaking, but each has something to share about Christmas and about love. There are all the things we associate with Christmas—Christmas gifts, Christmas trees, Christmas cards, Christmas songs, Christmas ornaments, Christmas stockings, Christmas food, Christmas kisses, and Christmas miracles. There are babies and blind dates and grinches and grace. There are white Christmases and green Christmases and Christmas with surprises like Frisbees and enchiladas.

Some of the stories are of idyllic Christmas moments, and others are of moments that would never inspire a Hallmark movie. Some stories will make you laugh, and others will make you cry. There are first Christmases and last Christmases commemorated in these stories. And the wonder is greater because these are all true stories woven from the memories of real people.

The very first story “Two to Tango” by Love Inspired author Teri Wilson is my favorite. It is a story to delight any romance lover’s heart, and the final story, “Love Never Dies” by Norma Jean Thornton, required nearly a full box of Kleenex to soak up all my tears. From first dates to final goodbyes, all the stages of love and romance are covered in these stories, and they all carry a Christmas seal.

This is not a book for everyone, but if you like your Christmas reading rich in sentiment, rooted in the real, and mindful that the holiday is about the heart and the soul, I can promise you will find stories you’ll love within these pages.

By my count, I have now reviewed seventeen Christmas books this year, and I still have a couple to go. I think it’s clear that I love Christmas stories. How about you? Do you have a long list of favorite Christmas books, or do all these Christmas books elicit only a “Bah! Humbug!”?

Tuesday Review: Take Me Home for Christmas

Take Me Home for Christmas

By Brenda Novak

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

Sophia DeBussi was the meanest girl in Eureka High School fourteen years ago, the one who stole boyfriends, manipulated swains, and looked down on those less powerful and popular. Most of Whiskey Creek held her responsible for the death of a popular athlete in a drunk driving accident, and everyone knew she had broken the heart of Ted Dixon. None of it seemed to touch Sophia. Beautiful, wealthy, and living a life of conspicuous consumption, she seemed to have everything. No one saw the darkness—the physical and emotional abuse from her controlling husband and the drinking that was out of control until she spent thirty days in rehab. No one knew that she felt a secret relief when Skip disappeared while the two of them along with their thirteen-year-old daughter, Alexa, were cruising on Skip’s luxury yacht. But her relief turns to fear when Skip’s body washes up on the Brazilian shore with a hundred thousand dollars in cash strapped to his back, and home in Whiskey Creek the FBI wants him for mail fraud, securities fraud, and other charges. It seems Skip cheated investors, including a significant number of the citizens of Whiskey Creek, out of sixty million dollars. And the feds suspect Sophia may have been involved.

Ted Dixon is a successful novelist who has chosen to settle in Whiskey Creek, the town where he grew up. One of the perks of remaining in his hometown is the opportunity to still enjoy the friendships that have been an important part of his life since grade school. But as much as his friends mean to him and as much as he usually looks forward to their Friday morning coffee at Black Gold, he is not eager to hear all the speculation about the DeBussi scandal, and he is even less eager to have his friends studying him to see how he is reacting to the downfall of the woman who dumped him.

In material terms, Sophia has lost everything. What has not been confiscated by the FBI is heavily mortgaged and in arrears. Sophia doesn’t even have the money to bury her husband. With the life she knew destroyed and with no skills or training to help her survive, she is drowning in depression. Her daughter is the only thing that makes life worth living. Her in-laws have never thought she was good enough for their golden son, and now they view her as an enemy, holding her responsible for Skip’s crimes and threatening to sue for custody of her daughter. Many of the citizens of Whiskey Creek demonize her as the visible scapegoat to punish for their losses. Even those who feel pity for her wonder if she somehow deserves her fate. But to Sophia’s surprise, two former classmates stand by her. Gail DeMarco-O’Neal offers a substantial token of her friendship, and Eve Harmon pushes Sophia to fight back and suggests a job that might work for Sophia.

Once Ted realizes how desperate Sophia’s situation is, he can’t help feeling sorry for her. But he surprises even himself when, after his initial horrified reaction when Eve suggested he do so, he offers Sophia a job as his housekeeper/assistant. Neither he nor Sophia has ever forgotten all they once shared, and now that they are forced into one another’s company, they are both about to discover that the surface never reveals the full story.

Take Me Home for Christmas is the fifth novel in Brenda Novak’s Whiskey Creek series, and it is another story filled with fascinating, imperfect characters who find the strength to deal with all the problems life throws at them, grow through their difficulties, and emerge as winners. Small-town books are typically seen as comfort reads filled with warmth and coziness, but Novak shows readers that small towns can harbor the narrowness, the hypocrisies, and the outright meanness that human nature everywhere can exhibit. The greatest joy in this book is watching the redemption of Sophia, a woman who accepts the responsibility for her mistakes, becomes a stronger, better person than she ever dreamed she could be, and realizes that she can get by with a little help from her friends, her child, and an old love grown new.

Readers familiar with the series will enjoy seeing Ted finally forced to confront his past and deal with the grudge he has nurtured for fourteen long years. He may be the wronged figure in the old love story, but he is far from perfect. Most of the other characters from the earlier books in the series make appearances sufficient in length to please readers who have grown fond of them and brief enough not to overwhelm readers who are being introduced to Whiskey Creek for the first time. Novak provides the dramatis personae at the beginning just in case a reader should feel lost.

My one complaint about the book is that the ending just seemed too abrupt. For readers like me who love to bask in the glow of the HEA, there is little opportunity to do so. But that’s not a flaw large enough to outweigh the clear strengths of this book. If you like your small-town romance a bit darker and edgier than the norm, I recommend Take Me Home for Christmas. It lacks the sweetness and light of more conventional Christmas books, but the truths it hones fit right in with the season.

Novak will return readers to Whiskey Creek in March 2014 when she releases Come Home to Me, a reunion story featuring former bad-girl Presley Christensen, sister of Cheyenne Christensen Amos (When Snow Falls), and the baddest of those wild Amos brothers. Because When Snow Falls is my favorite in the series, I’m especially looking forward to Whiskey Creek #6.

I consider myself a true series addict, but even so in every series I love, there is a book or two that touches me in a special way and becomes a favorite among favorites. Do you have a special favorite story within your favorite series? Is it the one you consider objectively the best, or is it a more personal choice?

Saturday Review: Once a Rake

Once a Rake

By Eileen Dreyer

Publisher: Grand Central Forever

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

Circumstances make it appear that Earl Hawes, heir to the Marquess of Kendall, better known as Colonel Ian Ferguson, who had once saved the life of the Duke of Wellington, has experienced a change of loyalties and attempted to assassinate England’s most revered contemporary hero. Branded a traitor, Ian is on the run. Wounded and feverish, he is painfully making his way to the group of men he literally trusts with his life, Drake’s Rakes, confident that they will help him save Wellington from the true assassins and save Ian’s life and reputation as well. Taking shelter where he can and surviving off the land, Ian is fully aware of his danger and of the importance of the evidence he carries, evidence that can prove the truth of his story.

Lady Sarah Clarke’s (née Sarah Tregallan’s) life has been a struggle to survive physically and emotionally. The bastard daughter of a duke, saved by her father’s wife and adopted by a vicar and his wife who viewed her as a stained product of sin, Sarah thought of herself as nameless and homeless. The closest she came to finding real family was with her closest friends at the Last Chance Academy—Fiona Ferguson, Pippin Knight, and Lizzie Ripton, her unacknowledged half-sister. Sarah left Last Chance when her half-brother, the new Duke of Dorchester, arranged her marriage to Boswell Clark, a baron in need of her dowry in exchange for the closest to respectability Sarah is likely to achieve.

When her husband used the last of her dowry to buy his commission in the army, Sarah was left to keep Fairbourne, the Clarke estate, running and to provide for his family, who resent her and think themselves superior to her. Despite the hard work, Sarah has found a kind of contentment at Fairbourne, and, with the help of the stud fees of Willoughby, a 600-pound pig, she manages to keep herself and her household from outright poverty. But the war is over, and there has been no word from Boswell. His heir, a greedy man without an iota of integrity, is eager to claim the estate. Her mother-in-law feels entitled to indulge herself in the expensive paints she needs to pursue her painting, and her sister-in-law is miserable over being forced to leave school due to the family’s lack of funds. As if all these problems were not enough, Sarah finds the most wanted man in Britain hiding in one of her outbuildings.

Sarah can’t bring herself to refuse food and first aid to a wounded man, but she knows that helping him places all she is desperately trying to save in jeopardy. When she learns that he is the brother of her friends Fiona and Mairead Ferguson and a hero of her schooldays, the situation becomes more complicated. Ian is reluctant to involve Sarah, but the stakes are higher than personal safety. And he realizes he needs her help to reach his goal. Soon they are both up to their necks in adventure and danger, but the greatest risk may be the hearts they are giving away and a love that reason says can never be.

Eileen Dreyer is dividing her Drake’s Rakes series into trilogies. Once a Rake introduces the second trilogy, the Last Chance Academy series, which was introduced by a novella, It Begins with a Kiss (July 2012). Readers who have followed the series will recognize Ian Ferguson and his plight. I confess to a weakness for red-haired heroes. I was already fascinated by Ian, and I have been looking forward to his story. It does not disappoint. Ian has all the necessary qualities for a romance hero—intelligence, honor, strength, a sense of humor, a capacity for tenderness, and sufficient biography and personality to make him an individual rather than a type with a name.  

 Sarah broke my heart from the beginning with her blend of quiet strength and aching vulnerability. She is one of the loneliest characters I have encountered. Early in the book, Dreyer describes her: “She had spent her entire life seeking inclusion. Envying her four friends that they were wanted for no other reason than their existence. A feeling Sarah couldn’t comprehend. emotionally” Once she is separated from her school friends, her closest tie is to a pig. But despite the  emotional deprivation she has known, Sarah is a woman of grace and generosity. She treats those who see her as inferior because of her birth with kindness and understanding, and yet she is human enough to admit her longing to exact revenge. Plus, how can anyone resist a heroine who dreams of Oxford and names a pig Willoughby? Sarah and Ian not only have incredible chemistry but they also share their status as outsiders who know what it is to fight for survival.

Readers who prefer romances that focus on the hero and heroine and keep them together for most of the story will appreciate Once a Rake. And yet Dreyer accomplishes this and still creates substantial contexts with a host of characters whom she sketches in sufficient detail to give them all—from the absent Bromwell to the substantially present pig--individual reality. The assassin Minette Ferrar frightens me beyond description and her heinous behavior lingers in my mind far too long for comfort.

I’m a reader who generally prefers quiet books with the focus on relationships, but I have discovered a few authors who write what I term “romantic adventure” whose books unfailingly engage me fully. They create characters in whom I believe wholly and plots that keep my heart in my throat. Mary Jo Putney is the historical romance author who has best exemplified these qualities for me for decades, and Eileen Dreyer’s skills rival those of MJP.  I am also intrigued by the way Dreyer is creating a heroine-centric series on the foundation of a male-bonded society.

If you are already a Drake’s Rakes fan, you will be pleased to know that tendrils of the overarching plot of treason continue to entangle even as other tendrils are severed and the romance is as satisfying as it was in the first trilogy. If you have never read Eileen Dreyer’s historical romances, Once a Rake is a great starting point. Or if you want a brief sample of her style first, the digital edition of the prequel novella, It Begins with a Kiss, is available for $.99. I’ve been recommending this writer since I first read her Kathleen Korbel categories years ago. I’m delighted that I can recommend her historicals with as much enthusiasm.

While I loved the hero and heroine of Once a Rake, the most vividly memorable character may be the villainess. Who is your candidate for the most believably scary villain/villainess in romance fiction?