All's fair game

REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY

We always suspected that the glamorous world of fashion and beauty magazines was witchy-bitchy—far more fascinating behind the pages than on them. Author Lynn Messina reveals the flaws and foibles of editors who reign as tyrants in her flamboyantly fun new novel, Fashionistas. For associate editor Vig Morgan, life behind the scenes at Fashionista magazine is one long exercise in masochistic frustration. So when three of her colleagues bring her a sure-fire plan to get rid of the editor-in-chief and all-around harridan, Jane McNeill, Vig is only a tad reluctant to be the plan's linchpin. And thus the epic campaign begins, as Vig coerces a semi-reluctant Alex Keller, the mysterious, tantrum-throwing events editor, to join the crusade. Messina liberally seasons her sprightly, savvy novel with the challenges of surviving in Manhattan, while delivering magnificently on the old truism of girl meets boy. Fashionistas is the ultimate urban fairy tale, in which the good-enough girls win.


My wild Irish

When an impoverished Irish maid resists the assault of her loutish English master—while her fiance's brother Aidan fights with and kills the collector of the rents—there can be only one outcome in Alexis Harrington's poignant tale, The Irish Bride. Elopement and escape to America seem the only alternative for Farrell Kirwan after her reckless resistance. But instead of her fiance, Liam, Farrell marries his brother Aidan O'Rourke, and they set sail for New Orleans. Family complications heighten Farrell's travails. Not only is she married to the wrong brother, but Aidan O'Rourke's victim was her own brother Michael. Blinding herself to her brother's faults and refusing to see the best of Aidan, Farrell vows to keep her love for Liam alive. Englishman Noel Cardwell, pressured by his father to redeem himself, is determined to pursue the pair and bring them to justice. One to bed, the other, dead, thinks he. Alexis Harrington evokes the wistful troubles of the Irish in this splendid tale.


Brotherly love

Forensic anthropologist T.J. McCloud has more than enough headaches to deal with, including investigating the source of long-buried bones the town fathers hope are those of pirates and fearing a trusted friend has covered up Balkan war crimes. In Patricia Rice's evocative contemporary novel, McCloud's Woman, McCloud has followed his brother Jared's path to a tiny Carolina beach community in search of privacy to research the bones and find out if the crimes were covered up. The last thing he needs is Patsy Simonetti, the feisty nemesis of his youth, to reappear in his life. She's not the Patsy he remembers. Now calling herself Mara Simon, she's bleached, bobbed, multi-married and determined to prove herself in the volatile world of movie producing. As they tussle over which one should control the use of a tiny plot of land, forces determined to keep the secret of crimes of another war threaten the fragile truce that grows between them. Vigorous storytelling combines with intriguing characters in this fast-paced and fascinating read.


Here's lookin' at you, kids

Selling pricey Beverly Hills real estate isn't enough to support the Abruzzi family's California vineyard in Sandra Hill's charming time-travel romp, The Very Virile Viking. The answer to Angela Abruzzi's dreams may lie in permitting the vineyard to be used as a movie set. And then her real salvation comes along. Never mind that Magnus Ericsson comes two millennia into the future to provide that solution, or that he comes equipped with nine children—nine!—as if in answer to Grandma Rose Abruzzi's prayers. Hill delivers a warm-hearted tale of falling in love that's as sparkling and zesty as the wines of Blue Dragon vineyard.


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

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