Strangers in a beguiling land

REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY

For young Scotswoman Helen Gloag, escape means survival. She sets sail for colonial America to escape the scandal of her misconduct. On board the ship, she befriends a rich woman to escape the stench and coarseness of steerage. But each seeming escape enmeshes Helen in more intrigue in Debbie Taylor's impressive debut historical novel, The Fourth Queen . Pirates seize the ship and Helen is taken captive, destined for the slave markets of Morocco. She is discovered by a dwarf Scotsman known as Microphilius, himself once a pirate captive, who selects Helen for the emperor's private harem. Told in the alternating voices of Helen and Microphilius, The Fourth Queen offers fascinating and inventive speculation on actual events. As Helen rises to power within the harem, she becomes the object of an obsessive killer who has been killing the queens to consolidate power. From country lass to a woman all too wise in the ways of seduction and the dangers of the harem's political and personal intrigues, Helen finally realizes that her strongest loyalties remain close to home. This beguiling novel resonates with the heated passions of the Marrakech harem and the evocative voices of two countrymen who find love far from their homeland.


Dark images

Kelly Santos sees things. Touching a newspaper, she sees a man's murder. When she inherits an aged nun's few relics, she touches Sister Grace's rosary and sees the woman's life ended by a murderous hand. In Metsy Hingle's intensely suspenseful Flash Point, Kelly, who grew up in foster care, has returned to New Orleans to learn the truth about her mysterious heritage. But Kelly's uncanny visions of impending violence lead the police to believe she's committing the murders she foretells. As Kelly seeks to prove her innocence, dark secrets from her childhood combine with one person's desperation to keep those secrets hidden the only way possible—by eliminating Kelly. Hingle spins a steamy and suspenseful tale as entangling as a spider's web.


This old house

Be careful what you wish for. When the most beautiful ring she'd ever yearned for becomes a reality, Olivia Halsey retreats to her parents' house to avoid commitment. In Dee Holmes' heartfelt tale of love and friendship, Coming Home, Olivia's lifelong friends Claire Fitzgerald and Lexie James join their buddy in the restoration of her childhood home in Bishop, Rhode Island. All three have reached crossroads in their lives. Claire is worn down by maintaining the charade of her family life—and too ready to respond to an old flame. Lexie has led the ultimate "Sex in the City" life to an unfulfilling milestone. As the three old friends reunite and re-examine their lives, Olivia finds the power to make changes that will make her fragmented life complete.


Home for the holidays

Heiress Holly Latham believes she's orchestrated the perfect life by convincing her parents to purchase an aging North Carolina plantation right next door to her childhood sweetheart. But childhood ends, and sweethearts have a way of changing in Jude Deveraux's Holly. As a 13-year-old, one halcyon summer, Holly believed the world revolved around Lorrie Beaumont. Now that she's set up to rekindle their long-ago relationship, Nick Taggert keeps getting in the way. Darkly handsome, he seems too down-to-earth—and too suited for trucks and motorcycles—for the sophisticated life she's got planned, but he has a beguiling way of overcoming her resistance and making her re-evaluate which man is the real treasure in the artificial world of aristocratic Old South families and rundown plantations. It takes a treasure hunt on Christmas Eve to finally show Holly who her real Christmas Knight must be.


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

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