An exhilarating chorus of dramatic romance

REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY

This month, forget the cold and snow -- even the outside world -- as you lose yourself in the deeply involving, complex dramas created by the finest authors of women's fiction.

The unique, musical voice of Barbara Samuel finally gets the soundstage it deserves in her hardcover debut novel, No Place Like Home. This story absolutely blew me away.

Jewel Sabatino brings her son, Shane, and her dying friend, Michael Shaunnessey, from their home in New York to live with her family in Pueblo, Colorado. Disowned by her father and secretly envied by her more traditional sisters, Jewel struggles to cope with rebuilding family ties while watching her closest friend fade away.

Samuel writes with exquisite, intimate detail of the boisterous Italian-American family and the man who comes to make amends with his dying brother, only to find the love of his life. Malachi Shaunnessey is haunted by his shattered family, and only the loving power of Michael and Jewel gives him the strength to make peace with his past.

In No Place Like Home Samuel captures with lyrical beauty what makes home and family -- a story readers will want to devour as readily as the homespun recipe for Michael's Magnificent Chicken Wings. A musically evocative writer, Samuel has written a novel that's a tour de force, a concerto of life and love and family grandly delivered.


Heart of stone

In Deborah Smith's novel, The Stone Flower Garden, the pink marble which defines the town of Burnt Stand carries the veined traces of the Wade and Hardigree families, twining them together through the generations.

Darl Union is heir to the Hardigree marble quarry and the Hardigree family legacy, and her grandmother Swan will go to any length to insure the survival of both. Eli Wade, the boy genius, is the stonecutter's son, rough and ready for molding. Like the unpredictable marble stone, which seems indestructible, one blow falsely delivered will shatter a life.

At 10, Darl is witness to just such a blow, and she's convinced the pieces of her life can never be whole again. When Eli returns, 25 years later, fresh wounds are dug in the earth and in their hearts.

Deborah Smith's Southern Gothic masterpiece bears the perfection of sculpture, with finely chiseled details that make the dull greige stone come as alive and pink as human flesh. An enticing, evocative suspense story.


Finding sanctuary

Dramatic danger knows no color barrier, and in Rochelle Alers' compelling romantic suspense story, Jolene Walker and Michael Kirkland know No Compromise.

Capt. Kirkland, on leave from Pentagon duties, believes life is easy when you're not controlled by what you can't control. But the threat to Jolene, director of a women's abuse center, The Sanctuary, calls all of Michael's resolve into play when she is in danger, and The Sanctuary's work is ransacked and destroyed.

The uncontrollable forces of growing love and shadowing danger demand strength from Jolene and Michael, and Alers delivers, with people you'll cheer for and hold close to your heart, even as you share their tears over battles lost. Alers makes no compromise herself in delivering a commanding story, courageously told.


The miracle and magic of love

The price of finding a medical miracle for her dearest friend, Mara Sommers, is Joelle D'Angelo's newfound love -- Mara's husband -- in Diane Chamberlain's richly readable novel, Cypress Point. Mara is brain-damaged by her first pregnancy, and Joelle holds the bittersweet secret of her own pregnancy from Liam, who is torn between love for his wife and her best friend.

A miracle may save Mara, and Joelle knows only one woman who can provide it, the healer who saved her own life as an infant. But will Carlynn Shire offer the healing Joelle wants for her friend, or just more secrets? Chamberlain draws you deep into the human frailties and magic of love as strong as the evergreen trees clinging to life at Cypress Point.


Behind enemy lines

Dee Henderson brings us an authentic portrait of life in the armed forces in her inspirational military romance, True Valor. The second entry in Henderson's new Uncommon Heroes series combines romance and suspense in the theater of Mideast conflict. Grace Yates is a talented and devoted naval aviator who catches the eye of Bruce "Striker" Stanton, an Air Force pararescue officer. Bruce must keep his feelings for Grace contained by professionalism when her plane is shot down behind enemy lines, and he is called by duty and faith to rescue her. With its behind-the-scenes look at military deployments and a setting taken straight from the headlines, True Valor will have special appeal for military families and anyone searching for heroes in these uncertain times.


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

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