Review by Sandy Huseby
March blows in one of romance writing's freshest voices, now making her hardcover debut.
Not that heroine Maddie Faraday doesn't have just cause. Her day starts with the discovery of black lace lingerie (not hers) under the seat of her husband's car. Then her old, first love shows up in town asking questions about her husband's finances.
Hmmm. What's a woman to do? In the case of Crusie's crackling great tale of life, love, and lies in small town Frog Point, Ohio, Maddie decides to demand a divorce. In the process, she discovers that she is much more than wife and mother, she is a person able to cope with incredible crises and emerge triumphant. Maddie Faraday is a woman whose vulnerabilities and strength of character will make you cheer her on.
Crusie writes with a voice that is brutally funny, alternately in-your-face raucous and so poignant you'll laugh with tears streaming down your cheeks. She transcends comparison, and this tale is a pure gem.
Tell Me Lies
By Jennifer Crusie
St. Martin's, $24.95
ISBN 0312179405
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Sandy Huesby: What's a nice Ohio State Ph.D. candidate like you doing writing romance?
Jennifer Crusie: Actually, the Ph.D. got me started writing romance. I was researching women's narrative strategies and read romances because they were the most intrinsically female form of literature I could find. I got so hooked on them, I switched my dissertation topic to them, and shortly after that, I began writing them. The genre was just too powerful to resist.SH: How much of your own personality and life experience are in your writing?
JC: Personality, a lot. People who knew me before I started writing have a hard time reading my books because my real voice is so present that it's hard to get that willing suspension of disbelief. And people who have read the books and then meet me say that I sound just like my heroines.But life experiences, not a lot. My passion for stray dogs is there, and my exasperation that the world just isn't going the way I think it should, and my values are all through the books, but real experiences? Very few, and most of them are about the dogs.
SH: What's the one essential ingredient of being a popular fiction writer?
JC: Respect for your reader, whatever the kind of fiction you're writing. Writing is an incredibly arrogant act. I'm essentially going up to complete strangers and saying, "Give me $25 dollars and four hours of your life so you can listen to my ideas and my stories." The responsibility inherent in the act of publishing a book is huge because that reader could have spent those four hours playing with her kid or reading Toni Morrison or running a marathon or making love or any number of things, but she gives them to me. So in that four hours, I owe her everything I've got. That's what every writer owes her reader.
The western is enjoying a re-emergence in popular culture, film, and television as well as fiction, and the romance genre is no exception. Here are three wonderfully told tales, from three gifted storytellers, that vividly portray landscapes of the Old West.
In Anne Avery's Fortune's Fancy, plucky Mary Donatto is determined to finish her father's last great con. He always counseled her that the best target is a criminal mastermind because such a person thinks himself indomitable. So Mary and her father's loyal servants travel to the Hotel Colorado to match wits with Geoffrey Archer. Against the dramatic backdrop of the hotel (which remains a national landmark today) Mary confronts everything from the newfangled electrical lighting system to the persistent distraction of Marcus Thorne with seemingly equal aplomb.
Avery's touch turns light at just the right moments as Fortune's Fancy romps to its wild'n'woolly resolution.
Fortune's Fancy
By Anne Avery
Topaz, $5.99
ISBN 0451407407
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Sandra Chastain proves that beneath the demure and proper demeanor of a Southern belle lurks a heart that won't take no for an answer. In Shotgun Groom, Lily Towns travels to the dusty plains of Texas to wed Matt Logan.
Except it wasn't Matt who sent for her. Matt's dying brother Jim has his own reasons for wanting to make sure the wedding takes place before he dies.
Matt's impression of Lily as a pampered beauty unable to live the hardscrabble life of the plains is a challenge she's only too willing to surmount. When the bride is a strong-willed woman like Lily Towns, there will be a wedding, even if she has to wield the shotgun herself.
Shotgun Groom captivates and reminds us of the pure power of feisty determination tempered by love.
Shotgun Groom
By Sandra Chastain
Bantam, $5.99
ISBN 055357583X
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On a shortlist of the finest of western romance writers, the name Dorothy Garlock is bound to appear, and her newest novel, Sweetwater, gives ample evidence why.
Jenny Gray comes to the Wyoming territory to build a new life for herself and her younger half-sisters, who she's rescued from an abusive household. The recklessness and courage of that act will prove valuable as she stands up to the corruption of the local Indian agent while trying to earn the title to Stoney Creek Ranch.
Trell McCall, a neighboring rancher, helps her restore the basics for survival on the pillaged ranch and is also the man on the scene when Havelshell, the Indian agent, tries to drive Jenny away.
Garlock writes with the clarity of pure mountain air, and her prose stands as strong as the Western landscapes and people she depicts.
Sweetwater
By Dorothy Garlock
Warner, $6.50
ISBN 0446602558
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Sandy Huseby writes and reviews from her home in Fargo, ND. She is online at SHuseby@aol.com.
©1998, ProMotion, inc.
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