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Why we keep the books we do
REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY
The splendid and heartbreaking nuances of creating a family are explored with a tender and visceral sense of truth in Barbara Delinsky's The Woman Next Door. When neighbors discover that the young widow among them is newly pregnant, three wives have reasons to fear that the unnamed father is her own husband. For Amanda O'Leary, a school psychologist coping with the trauma of a popular student's suicide, the questions about Gretchen's pregnancy are doubly painful. Amanda and Graham O'Leary have undergone infertility treatments for years, and the suspicions and envy haunt Amanda as she struggles for acceptance in Graham's baby-bountiful family. If Graham is not the father, Karen fears it's her husband, Lee, who has already been unfaithful in a string of affairs. Even Georgia, who leaves behind her househusband Ross and their children, cannot escape the painful questions and fears. In the seemingly ordinary domestic crucible of a country cul de sac, Delinsky poses the dramatic questions of the ages with powerful writerly craft and candor. With affirming and memorable fiction, she creates a moving story of the triumphs of family life.
By Barbara Delinsky Simon & Schuster, $25 ISBN 0743204697
Home on the rangeHistorical author Jill Marie Landis' first hardcover Western romance, Summer Moon, brings a shy Eastern spinster with a heart as big as the Texas sky to the rancher whose eyes and heart are focused on the cold harsh ground of battle.Reed Benton blames Comanche raiders for the death of his wife and the disappearance of his young son, Daniel, years before. When he and other Texas Rangers recover Daniel, Reed must contend with a son who is now a stranger. Kate Whittington's own childhood in an orphanage gives Daniel the compassion that his own father cannot summon. A Landis tale is sure to bring powerful tugs to readers' hearts, and Summer Moon fulfills every expectation and more. As she recreates the daily drama of life on the frontier, Landis creates wonderfully real people working to settle the broad plains.
By Jill Marie Landis Ballantine, $19.95 ISBN 0345440390
Indian outlawAward-winning author Kathleen Eagle lives the cross-cultural story, and her life experience resonates in her poetic prose. Even as she portrays with tender mercies the struggles of people haunted by the past and challenged by what could be, Eagle delivers the promise of her latest title, You Never Can Tell.Kole Kills Crow tantalized readers in Eagle's earlier writing, and his story demanded telling. The modern day Lakota warrior has turned his back on his past as an Indian rights activist, on his history as a father, and even on his people, as he hides out on a northern Minnesota Chippewa reservation. When investigative reporter Heather Reardon tracks him down, Kole must confront his own choices and the past that hovers in the shadows of his heart. Eagle writes with haunting intensity about the struggle of survival in Indian country and the evocative battle for two loving people to overcome obstacles of culture and their own vulnerabilities.
By Kathleen Eagle Morrow, $24 ISBN 0380978164
All in the familyAlways a keeper, Catherine Coulter delivers suspense driven by intense family drama with the latest entry in her FBI thriller series, Hemlock Bay. While on the trail of a kidnapper, FBI agents Dillon Savich and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, must dash off to rescue his sister, Lily, from what they fear is a diabolical plot to kill her. Lily has inherited several paintings from her grandmother, and the valuable artwork might put her life in jeopardy. Coulter is a master of the fierce loyalties that compel her characters to confront danger. Hemlock Bay grips the reader with pulse-pounding action, as well as a little old-fashioned terror.
By Catherine Coulter Putnam, $24.95 ISBN 0399147381
Sandy Huseby writes and reviews from her homes in Fargo, North Dakota, and lakeside in northern Minnesota. |
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Keepers are those remarkable books that captivate us and keep us coming back to re-read the same stories over and over again. With this month's new romance novels, keepers are the order of the day.
