Romance offers diversion, affirmation

REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY

The power of family, of love, has always driven even the frothiest of entertainment fiction. As our nation endured the tragic events of recent weeks, we heard real-life stories of love and devotion that touched millions of hearts, and it is in that spirit that we offer this month's selection of romance and women's fiction. May you find solace, comfort and yes, diversion, in these stories written in a younger, more innocent time.


    Lady of the night

    From his first rude meeting with the mysterious night bandit, Rafael Belloch is mesmerized in Meagan McKinney's Moonlight Becomes Her. The one-night encounter with Lady Moonlight leaves a lasting impression on Rafe, and he resolves to someday avenge those vivid, laughing eyes.

    When Lady Moonlight reappears years later, Rafe sets out to return in kind the provocative torment he suffered at her hands. Mystere Rillieux matches her will against Rafe's, and it's just the beginning of the suspense in Meagan McKinney's cleverly told pastiche of 19th century New York high society. The delicious intrigue of lovers caught in the moonglow is a glittering winner.


    A fresh start

    Annie Galloway finds herself starting life over in the aftermath of her husband's death in Barbara Bretton's A Soft Place to Fall. For Annie, that means everything changes. She gives up the home of her dreams -- and the dreams her husband's family had for the couple -- for a rundown Maine cottage. As Annie copes with a changing relationship with her late husband's family, she also looks forward to the promise of building a new life with Sam Butler.

    Sam brings dark secrets from his own past to Shelter Rock Cove. A Wall Street investment banker, he must reconcile his own complicity in questionable banking practices as he risks his life to set things right. Barbara Bretton's story rings with a poignant reality that is as heartwarming and bittersweet as warm apple cider on a cold, rainy night.


    Somehow form a family

    An immigrant orphan Irish lass comes to America hoping for a new beginning in Kathleen Eschenburg's lyrical debut novel, The Nightingale's Song. As she matures, Mary Margaret Quinn believes her destiny is in caring for other orphans like herself.

    Civil War veteran Gordon Kincaid disrupts Maggie Quinn's carefully planned life when he comes to Baltimore to search for his daughter, Clara. Wounded and widowed, he is determined to rebuild life for his child in the war-ravaged South. He first sees Maggie's love for his child and then her potential for loving him.

    Kathleen Eschenburg writes with a gentle tenderness reminiscent of LaVyrle Spencer in this poignant story of three wounded, abandoned people -- man, woman and child -- finally uniting to form a family.


    Hunks in the highlands

    The larger-than-life intrigues and passions of Scottish clans rise from the adventurous pages of Lois Greiman's Highland Rogues series in The MacGowan Betrothal. Isobel Fraser is already linked with Gilmour MacGowan because of her sister's marriage to his brother. But with family intimacy comes disdain. She'll have no part of his roguish ways, even if he is the heart's desire of every lass in the highlands. Greiman's readers are in for a delightful treat as her handsome Scotsman takes on the challenge of wooing and winning the stubborn Isobel.


Sandy Huseby writes and reviews from her homes in Fargo, North Dakota, and lakeside in northern Minnesota.

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