The roots of a family dilemma

REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY

Bite into a bodacious tale of Southern family heroism as staunch and deeply rooted as the apple orchards of Deborah Smith's bold and charismatic Sweet Hush. Hush McGillen Thackery's plan for her life is as regimented as her orchards—build the family apple trees into a flourishing business and legacy. Hush faces the greatest challenge of her life, however, when her son Davis brings home a unique guest: Eddie Jacobs, presidential first daughter and now his very pregnant bride. Secrets kept by Hush since her son's birth face revelation to the entire nation by right-wing radio muckraker Haywood Kenny. She finds an unlikely ally in Nick Jacobek, who comes to Sweet Hush Orchards to rescue his misguided niece only to find himself captivated by the mountain woman with the courage and tenacity to take on a president. Smith's tale of temptation and redemption is as old as Eve's apple, her lushly peopled pages as fertile as the Southern soil nurturing the family orchards. When Hush branches out from her home turf, whether she's standing toe-to-toe with Eddie's mama, the first lady, or delivering a much-deserved switching to the villainous Kenny, she carries with her the roots of her native soil in ways that will have the reader cheering her on.


It ain't heaven, it's Taos

Sometimes, temptation demands a high price, as Luna McGraw has discovered trying to dig herself out of the torment of alcohol recovery to reclaim her life and her daughter. In Barbara Samuel's exquisite story of betrayal and renewal, A Piece of Heaven, Luna is determined to rebuild the fragile bonds of a strained relationship with her rebellious teen-ager, Joy. When Thomas Coyote challenges her to confront her own needs, Luna is torn between their building love and her devotion to her daughter. With a pointillist's eye for detail, Samuel explores the tender nuances of the many ways people leave—the father who dies too young, the husband who strays, the mother who loses herself in her addiction. This author pulls no punches, which makes the triumphs her characters achieve in the joyous richness of everyday living all the more satisfying.


Quothe St. Raven: welcome to hell

The best-intended plan can have unexpected consequences, as Cressida Mandeville learns in Jo Beverley's deliciously sinful escapade, St. Raven. Determined to steal back the family jewels and estate from their unrightful owner, Lord Crofton, Cressida hazards honor and virginity at his hands, only to find herself kidnapped on the road to ruin by Tris Tregallows, the Duke of St. Raven. Stokeley Manor beckons—the estate house gambled away by her father to Crofton. Behind the mask of the houri, at Raven's side, Cressida risks discovery by Crofton and, more threatening still, risks the loss of her heart to St. Raven. Beverley evokes with devastating precision the decadent splendor of the English country estate in all its hellish debauchery as St. Raven and Cressida pair up amid the ruins of civilized society in search of the treasure her father has lost. Beverley spins a crafty tale of sensuality and suspense as bewitching as the heady brew served up at Stokeley Manor.


Worth their mettle

It's hard to hang on to your joie de vivre when you've spent the last 11 years in a notorious French prison. Christopher Warrender is determined to make up for that lost time amid the splendors of the season in London in Kate Huntington's cheery and charming Regency romance, Town Bronze. His grandfather's overbearing matchmaking between Christopher and Cassandra Davies is no more welcome to her than to Christopher, and Cassie, too, goes to London seeking town bronze. The quest for the patina of experience in worldly matters fates the childhood nemeses to cross paths. Christopher should be ecstatic with the blandishments of the Widow Bennington; Cassie, the besotted Lord Whitby. The frictions of their childhood give way to the fires of love in this sparkling little package.


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

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