Tuesday Review: The Last Good Man

The Last Good Man

By Kathleen Eagle

Publisher: Bell Bridge Books

Release Date: May 1, 2012 (reissue of 2000 release)

Savannah Stephens couldn’t wait to leave Sunbonnet, Wyoming, for a larger, more sophisticated world, and her beauty and ambition earned her the success of which she’d dreamed. But now her years as a famous lingerie model are behind her, her money is gone, and Savannah’s options have narrowed to one. She has returned to Sunbonnet and the aunt who raised her after Savannah’s mother died of breast cancer. Savannah is recovering from the same disease. The scars reconstructive surgery left on her body are less significant than the wounds to her spirit. Savannah’s sense of worth was based on her face and her body. The changes in her body make her feel as if she has lost what made her, and she’s spiraling deeper into depression now that she’s back in Sunbonnet where her aunt can help care for Claudia, the six-year-old daughter whom Savannah feels is the only thing of value left in her life.

Clay Keogh has been in love with Savannah since they were kids tagging after his older half-brother, Kole Kills Crow, a Native American activist and suspected terrorist and murderer who has been on the run for years. Clay knew that the young Savannah had a crush on Kole, but he’s not prepared to see his brother’s features stamped on the face of a precocious six-year-old. But Clay loves his brother, and it only takes a few minutes for the child to earn her own place in his heart, a large part of which her mother already owns.  It is Clay who refuses to let Savannah stay in hiding. Although their first reunion takes place under cover of darkness in an old haunt of theirs, Clay pushes Savannah back into the light. It is he who insists she see a doctor for follow-up care. He marries her, accepting her conditions, so that he can take care of her at his ranch, the Lazy K. But Savannah will not allow Clay to touch her scars, those on her body or those in her heart, and Clay is convinced that Savannah will leave Sunbonnet, the Lazy K, and him as soon as she is healthy.

Kathleen Eagle is a superb storyteller who creates compelling, complex characters, and The Last Good Man is one of her best books. It has lost none of its power in the dozen years since it was first published.  Eagle’s gift for characterization can be seen in the secondary characters such as Clay’s mother, his ex-wife, Savannah’s aunt, and Savannah’s hairdresser friend—credible mixes of strengths and weaknesses with pieces of the lives that make them who they are revealed. Even characters who never actually appear in the book such as Kole Kills Crow and Savannah’s New York friend Heather emerge as real, believable personalities. Claudia may seem improbably mature to some readers, but anyone who has ever watched a small child of a single parent caught in physical or mental illness will recognize the fierce protectiveness and caretaking that can become part of the child’s nature.

Clay is wonderful, one of my all-time favorite heroes. Hardworking, competent, sexy, and nurturing with an always tender touch for the wounded and needy, human or animal, he is the man the title evokes. But he is no impossible dream. He can be angry and impatient, he can make foolish choices, and he can find it difficult to articulate his feelings. Eagle reveals enough about his past for the reader to understand that his need to take care of others is an essential and innate part of the person Clay is. Like many natural givers, Clay must learn to accept the gifts of others.

Savannah, despite her illness, is a difficult character to like for the first part of the book. She is totally self-absorbed, even to the point of avoiding her responsibilities to her child. But as the reader learns more about her and realizes why appearance is so important to her, why the changes cancer surgery have wrought in her body have so devastated her, and why she is convinced that she holds death within her, she becomes more sympathetic. Watching her grow and take responsibility for herself and others becomes a joy.

Kathleen Eagle is a gifted, intelligent writer. I highly recommend her books. If you are an Eagle fan, you know her books are definitely worth a reread. If you’ve never read her, The Last Good Man is a great place to start. I suggest you also look for You Never Can Tell, the story of Kole Kills Crow and Savannah’s friend, New York journalist Heather Reardon, which Bell Bridge Books also plans to reissue. And I’m hoping for reissues including electronic editions of my favorites by Eagle—Reason to Believe and What the Heart Knows.

What’s the last book you reread? What golden oldies would you most like to see reissued?

The Last Good Man is available for free download May 17 and 18 at Amazon.


















 

Lessons My Mother Taught Me

My first and best teacher was my mother, and nearly fifteen years after her death, I am still blessed every day by what she taught me. This week, as another Mother’s Day without her approaches, I’m particularly grateful for three lessons.

      Love generously.

 When my mother was in hospice, the chaplain asked in one of his visits, “Have you told your mother you love her?” He added, “Later it will be important to you that you said the words.” My sister, my brother, and I smiled because every day we said “I love you.”  Saying the words came as naturally to us as saying “Good morning.”

From our earliest memories through the vicissitudes of adolescence through leaving home and starting lives and on into our middle years, Mother had shown her love for us with hugs and kisses and verbal assurances that we were loved. Through her example, we were taught that an “I love you” could add to the joy of a celebration, ease the sting of a disappointment, instill the courage to persevere, and heal the wounds inflicted by an indifferent world. She taught us that love was a verb defined by actions, but she understood that the words mattered too. She gave both words and actions unstintingly.

Evidence that her legacy lives on in a fourth generation surrounds me as I look at a get-well card with a three-inch-high “I Love You” handmade by an almost thirteen-year-old whose drama queen antics can drive the family crazy, hear a hearty “I love you” as a phone conversation ends with an eleven-year-old who’s more into video games and baseball than phone chats, and am punched in the heart by a three-year-old who signs “I love you” before she races out to tackle the world. The woman whose last words were “I love you” would be pleased with her descendants.

Laugh often.

 When I think of my mother, I see her smiling. Sometimes when a family gathering erupts in giggles and guffaws over an oft-repeated story, I think I hear the echo of her laughter.

One reason I love rereading Georgette Heyer’s books is that they evoke the memories of laughing with my mother over particular scenes. She laughed often and loudly over romantic comedies, children’s funny ways, and life’s absurdities. She laughed at herself. Even in the last months of her life, in moments of increasingly rare lucidity, she’d recognize a preposterous idea she’d held and laugh. “A merry heart doeth good” was one of her favorite sayings, and oh the good her merry heart did family and friends.

Live today.

She belonged to a generation of women that prided themselves on dust-free houses and stain-free collars and to a family of house-proud women, but Mother was always willing to forget the housework long enough to play hide-and-go-seek in the back yard, to listen to a child’s account of a doll’s disaster, a teacher’s accolade, a run batted in, or to dry the tears caused by a skinned knee or a broken heart.

Her mother was scandalized when Mother began using cake mixes for her every day baking rather than using the time-consuming recipes that had been used by her grandmother and her grandmother’s mother. But Mother relished the time such shortcuts gave her—time to read a book, to visit with a friend, to count the stars. One of her favorite aphorisms was “Yesterday’s a canceled check; tomorrow’s a promissory note. Today is cash in hand.”  I’m grateful for all the todays she gave me.

What lessons do you most value from your mother? What do you most want to teach your children?

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!

Tuesday Review: A Night Like This

A Night Like This
By Julia Quinn
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: May 29, 2012
A drunken challenge gone awry forced Daniel Smythe-Smith, Earl of Winstead, into exile. Roaming over Europe, he tried to stay one step ahead of the hired assassins of the Marquess of Ramsgate whose son, Hugh Prentice, Daniel shot. Three years after that misbegotten night, Hugh finds Daniel in Italy and tells him that it is safe to return to England. Hugh has his father’s promise to end the vendetta against Daniel. Eager for England and family, Daniel arrives home earlier than expected on the day of the annual Smythe-Smith musicale just as the concert is about to begin. Not wanting his return to upstage the performance, he observes from a back room. To his surprise, the pianist is not a Smythe-Smith, and Daniel is definitely interested in learning who she is. In fact, one look is all it takes for him to know he must kiss her. And one kiss leaves him intoxicated and wanting more: “She smelled like England, of soft rain and sun-kissed meadows. And she felt like the best kind of heaven.”

The mystery woman is Anne Wynter, governess to Daniel’s Pleinsworth cousins, Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances. Anne enjoys her charges, and she places a high value on comfort and stability, experience having taught her how grim life can be without them. Anne has been on her own since she was sixteen when her father disowned her.  The Earl of Winstead may be handsome and charming, but Anne is determined not to risk her hard-earned security by becoming involved with him. But she has no idea how persistent a smitten Daniel can be. When violence disrupts the outings Daniel engineers, he thinks his past is putting them at risk, but Anne has a dark past of her own and the threat may be from her old enemy. Dragons must be disposed of before a happy ending can be achieved.

The second book in the Smythe-Smith series is one of the feel-good romances of the year. It picks up where the last one left off, at the annual family musicale first made famous in Quinn’s beloved Bridgerton series. Once again Quinn does what she does best: she takes a standard Regency plot—governess with a big secret that puts her at risk falls for gallant aristocratic hero—and adds the touches that makes the story uniquely and delightfully hers. Anne is an immensely sympathetic and likeable heroine. Because of a mistake in judgment made when she was very young, she has been barred from all she has known and loved and forced to depend upon her own resources to survive. Life has made her cautious but not bitter, and it has not destroyed her sense of humor. As is common with Quinn’s books, the secondary characters are wonderfully drawn. Anne’s charges are particularly appealing. The scene with Harriet’s play is laugh-out-loud funny, and young Frances is key to the happy resolution.

But Daniel is the star of the book. Horrified by the results of the absurd duel, he accepts responsibility for maiming his friend, although his shooting him was an accident. His affection for his family is unmistakable, and he is the very pattern of a man totally blindsided and inebriated by love. Attracted to Anne from the moment he sees her, every meeting, every touch intensifies his feelings for her. He is euphoric just thinking about their first kiss.

He nearly bounced right off his feet, just thinking about it.

It had been splendid. Marvelous. A kiss to deny all previous kisses. Really, he didn't know what he'd been doing with all those other women, because whatever had happened when his kips had touched theirs, those had not been kisses.

Not like last night.

And the reader believes in the love that grows between these two because she sees them spend time together. They talk and laugh and share pieces of their lives with one another, and attraction deepens into a love that includes passion and liking and respect.

If you are a Julia Quinn fan, you will not want to miss this one. If you’ve never read Quinn and you like light-hearted romance that is more than froth, romance that leaves you with a smile on your face and a sigh of satisfaction, read A Night Like This. Then, glom her backlist. I’m already looking forward to the next Smythe-Smith book and hoping that Hugh Prentice will be the hero.

 What's your favorite Julia Quinn book? Who else do you count on for feel-good books?

Casting Your Cover Vote

Best Cover Contemporary-2006

The 2011 Cover Contest is now open for voting over at Cover Café. The sixty finalists in six categories—alternate reality, two-image (cover plus stepback), historical, contemporary, series, and worst—have been selected from more than 565 nominations. I always take time to check out the finalists and cast my vote in all six categories. I especially find it interesting that the covers that scream “romance novel” most loudly are rarely among the finalists. Since I’m not a fan of clinch covers, that’s fine with me.


Tastes in covers are almost as varied as tastes in reading. I find the fifty best covers as chosen annually by AIGA, the professional association for design, fascinating, but they are rarely the covers I find most appealing. I did like the cover of a Martha Grimes mystery and the one of a reissue of Machiavelli’s The Prince, both of which were among AIGA’s 2010 selections.

One of AIGA's 50 Best Covers, 2010

One of AIGA's 50 Best Covers, 2010

I usually find some covers I like a lot among the Cover Café finalists, but when the site conducted a best of the best from 2005-2010, only the series winner matched my pick. Lisa Kleypas’s Tempt Me at Twilight, historical winner 2009, was my choice for in that category, and although I think the cover of Vision in White by Nora Roberts is gorgeous, my vote would have gone to the 2010 contemporary winner, Sugar Creek by Toni Blake. And Jo Beverley’s cover for Three Heroes, one of my all-time favorite covers, gets little appreciation when covers are discussed.

Best of Best, Series

Best Historical Cover, 2009

Best Contemporary Cover, 2010

You have until midnight CST May 16 to vote in this year’s contest. I encourage you to cast your vote. All you need do is view the finalists, give your name and email address, and vote in at least three categories. Just groaning at the worst cover nominees is worth the visit. Check out the best of the best results too and the Chairs’ Honorable Mentions for 2011. The latter group included When Beauty Tamed the Beast, one of my favorite covers of last year—and one of my favorite books.



One of my all-time favorite covers

A Cover Cafe Honorable Mention, 2011

Which covers would you have voted for among those winners? What’s your all-time favorite book cover?

Tuesday Review: Barefoot in the Sand

Barefoot in the Sand
By Roxanne St. Claire
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: April 24, 2012

A hurricane that destroys the home on Barefoot Bay that Lacey Armstrong inherited from her grandparents frees her to pursue her dream of a bed and breakfast inn in the spot where the old house once stood. Some people might think she’s lost everything, but Lacey knows that as long as she and her daughter are safe, the storm can serve as the impetus she needs to propel her into realizing her dream. All she needs is the right architect, and she thinks she’s found him in Clay Walker--if the well-known North Carolina architect is willing to take on such a small project. But the Clay Walker who shows up on her beach is not the big name architect but his son, a younger man with a vision for Lacey’s future that exceeds her own and a body that raises her temperature and fuels her fantasies.

Clay Walker has something to prove to his father and to himself, and building the resort he envisions on Lacey Armstrong’s beach property will allow him to do it. He has a lot at stake, and he’s not reluctant to use his charm to get what he wants. But he never expected Lacey herself to be such a distraction. The chemistry between them is powerful, and soon Lacey is at the heart of all Clay’s dreams.

Of course, in romance fiction, the path to true love is always one strewn with obstacles, and in Lacey and Clay’s case, the obstacles include hometown opposition to change, Lacey’s teenage daughter who has her own agenda, and complications from both their pasts.  Lacey’s three best friends arrive to help her recover from the ravages of the hurricane and remain to offer advice and support. But in the final analysis, Lacey and Clay must make their choices about what they are willing to risk for a love that promises more than either of them ever expected.

I’m not a great reader of romantic suspense/thrillers, but Roxanne St. Claire is one of a handful of writers in that subgenre whose books I never miss. I was excited when I learned that she was writing a quartet of contemporary romance and placed my request as soon as the first book was available via NetGalley. Barefoot in the Sand did not disappoint. It has the strong characterization and steamy romance that I look for in this author’s books. Lacey is an engaging mix of optimism and fear, of strength and vulnerability. As a single mother, she has become accustomed to putting the needs of her child first and is a bit slow accepting her right to what makes her happy. This quality rings true for me, as does her concern about Clay’s being seven years younger.

It’s a minor point, but the hero’s name was a problem for me since it evoked the country singer by the same name, who did not at all fit my image of St. Claire’s hero. Once I moved beyond that association, I found Clay an interesting and likeable hero, one with intelligence, humor, and complexity enough to make him more that a hot hunk.

I also appreciated the role of female friendship in the story. Jocelyn, Zoe, and Tessa are intriguing characters in their own right, and St. Claire reveals enough about each of them to leave me eager for the other three books in the series. But they serve a purpose in Lacey’s book beyond setting up their own stories. The history, the jokes, the girl talk, and especially the deep affection the women share reveals an additional dimension of Lacey’s character. Barefoot in the Sand is a superb introduction to what promises to be another excellent series from Roxanne St. Claire.

What's your favorite romance novel that combines a great romance with a tale of friendship?

Congratulations to PJ, the Randomizer's choice to win a copy of No Longer a Gentleman by Mary Jo Putney. PJ, email me to let me know your preferred format.

Six Word Memoirs: Romance Fact or Fiction

According to literary legend, American novelist Ernest Hemingway, famous for his succinct prose, once accepted a challenge to write a story in six words. He won the bet with these six: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” In 2006, Smith, an online magazine that defines itself as “a place for storytelling, with a focus on personal narrative” invited its readers to accept a version of the Hemingway challenge and write their memoirs in six words. The response was so successful that in 2008 Smith editors Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith published a collection, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. That book became a NYT bestseller, so Fershleiser and Smith followed up in 2009 with Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak by Writers Famous and Obscure. Some of the memoirs are nearly as poignant as the Hemingway original: "For the children, I remain his." Some, like writer Erica Jong’s contribution (“Much married, fourth time is charmed”), have a dark humor. Some, like poet Robert Hass’ memoir (“May I have the last dance?”) have a captivating ambiguity. My personal favorite is by poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman (“Wonder-filled, and never a dull torment.”)

I thought that it would be fun for us to celebrate our love of romance fiction by writing our own six-word memoirs of love and HEAs. You can share your own love story or you can assume the persona of a character from a favorite romance novel. Smith’s advice to his contributors should stand us in good stead as well: “write honestly, write truthfully, write specifically, and write quickly.”

 

I’ll start with a few examples:

 

Love’s memories console. One day—reunion.

                                                            --Janga

 

She shot me. I fell hard.

                                    --Dain (Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase)

 

His walk. Lessons learned. Heart call.

                                     --Josie (Pleasure for Pleasure, Eloisa James)

 

Your turn, my friends. Give it a try. I promise these things are addictive. Just to encourage you, I’ll give one randomly selected memoirist a copy of one of my favorite new releases, No Longer a Gentleman by Mary Jo Putney. HEA is guranteed.

 

This post is adapted from one I posted in 2009 at Romance Vagabonds.

 

 

Tuesday Review: The Wedding Dress

The Wedding Dress

By Rachel Hauck

Publishers: Thomas Nelson

Release Date: April 3, 2012

Charlotte Malone, owner of Malone & Co., an upscale bridal boutique, should be a happy woman. Just over a year ago an anonymous benefactor deposited a hundred thousand dollars in her bank account, a windfall that allowed her to remodel her shop and increase her inventory of designer gowns. Charlotte’s gift for finding the perfect wedding dress for her customers has earned her the patronage of the reigning Miss Alabama and a feature in a prestigious bridal magazine. Her own wedding is a mere two months away. But Charlotte is bothered by a nagging feeling that things just aren’t right. The feeling sends her to the Ludlow Estate atop Red Mountain, a spot she visited as a child with her mother, for solitude and prayer, but she finds herself in the middle of the annual Ludlow Foundation auction. One thing irresistibly leads to another, and Charlotte leaves the auction the owner of a hundred-year-old trunk with a welded lock and unknown contents.

When Charlotte’s engagement to Tim Rose is broken, she turns her attention to the trunk. With Tim’s help, the lock is broken and its contents—a beautiful, timeless wedding dress and a pair of dogtags from the 1960s—revealed. As Charlotte traces the history of the dress, the stories of three other women surface: Emily Canton, who, in 1912, wore two wedding dresses, one by the dressmaker of Birmingham’s elite and one by a former slave, Taffy Hayes; Mary Grace Fox, who in 1939 married her preacher man in the Taffy Hayes dress Emily Canton Ludlow sold to her for ten dollars; and Hillary Saltonstall, who wore the dress when she married her military hero shortly before his deployment to Vietnam in 1968. Their stories not only intersect with Charlotte’s but they also give Charlotte her past and inspire the courage and faith she needs to claim her future.

The Wedding Dress is part contemporary romance, part historical romance, and part Christian allegory. As contemporary romance, the cultural references are employed to good effect. While enough detail is given to evoke the Depression and the 1960s, the richest historical period is the early twentieth century, the setting for Emily's story. The racial prejudice and the restrictions on women's lives are integral parts of her experience. The characters in all the stories are engaging, the multiple stories are interwoven skillfully, and the faith element is an organic part of the characterization rather than a sermon disguised as fiction. 

If you like Inspirationals, I highly recommend this book. If you avoid inspirational fiction because you assume it is badly written or preachy in tone, this novel will prove you wrong on both counts. I especially appreciated that while the book qualifies as a kisses-only romance, the author shows her characters as fully dimensional human beings for whom physical desire is natural.

Do you read Inspirationals? What are your favorites?

Note: As some of you know, I was in the hospital for several days last week and not feeling up to par for several days before and after that period. I apologize for the missed posts and fully expect to be back on track with Tuesday Reviews and Friday musings from now on.