Love me, love my secrets

These days, romance on the high seas is more than the same old pirate fantasy, as Susan Wiggs and Debbie Macomber demonstrate. Their new tales, set more than a century apart, sparkle with wit, crackling dialogue, and heroines who discover the courage to reach out for life's adventures.

REVIEWS BY TOM CORCORAN

Charmed, I'm sure

Reared amid a family of beauties in 1850s Boston, Isadora Dudley Peabody breaks out of her bookish, wallflower existence to take an adventurous voyage to Rio on the Silver Swan, captained by Ryan Calhoun. Susan Wiggs's The Charm School eloquently captures the growth of Isadora from ugly-duckling to passionate woman. As Ryan watches Isadora blossom, he finds himself drawn more and more to her spirit and fire -- while harboring a secret, dangerous objective. The elemental dangers of the high seas, the adventurous steps Isadora takes -- first timidly, then with bold gusto -- and the honorable quest Ryan keeps in his heart make The Charm School a beguiling read.


Moon over troubled water

Fast forward to today, and adventure turns sinister in Moon over Water by Debbie Macomber. Lorraine Dancy travels to Mexico in search of the father she long thought was dead. She finds him but barely has a chance to say "hello" before she's set-up for the theft of a valuable Mayan artifact. Lorraine escapes with Jack Keller, a renegade commando with definite ideas about a woman's place -- in the hold of his boat while he's out getting provisions, for example. But Lorraine will have no part of staying behind the scenes, and the scene of her piloting their boat out of the harbor towing a flotilla of boats still attached to the dock is laugh-out-loud funny.

If you love women who hold their own in any adventure, whether it's on the African Queen a la Hepburn and Bogart or romancing a stone, you're going to love this tale.


Second chances

Ardith Merritt honors a promise to her dying sister Ariel by delivering her niece and nephews to their father in the Wyoming wilderness in Elizabeth Grayson's Color of the Wind. Baird Northcross's children should have been Ardith's -- but Baird eloped with Ardith's younger sister Ariel. Shamed, Ardith left England to build a life as "Auntie Ardith," the writer and illustrator of popular children's books. The children and their father are virtual strangers. Now, the broken family is drawn together by Ariel's death. As ranch manager, Baird must make profit for British investors, and he asks Ardith to stay and help care for the children. Tested by the raw land and lingering wounds, Baird and Ardith must each find the courage to seek and grant forgiveness.


Desperadoes and derring-do

Author Dorothy Garlock brings alive the 1930s era which tested the mettle of our mothers and grandmothers in With Song. At first, Molly McKenzie is unaware that she witnessed the getaway of the men who gunned down her parents in their small Kansas store. Desperate to see the men brought to justice, she courageously agrees to publicize her eyewitness descriptions of the desperadoes. For federal agent Hod Dolan, this means two dangerous challenges: catching the bad guys and protecting Molly. As Hod takes up surveillance at Molly's home, the two discover there is no protection against the love building between them. Garlock writes with an uncanny ear for the nuances of this era, and bravo to her for bringing forth this uplifting love story from a dark and dusty time.


The legend lives on

The legend of the St. Leger family afflicts the next generation in Susan Carroll's The Night Drifter, which revisits the enchanted world introduced in The Bride Finder. Lance St. Leger, son of Anatole and Madeline, uses his unique gift to leave his body in search of the magical family sword entrusted to him. While in this ghostly state he meets Rosalind, a widow who has traveled to Cornwall intent on verifying the legend of King Arthur. Rosalind and Lance meet again in the hothouse cottage of Effie Fitzleger, the current bride finder, who pronounces them destined for each other. But the widowed Rosalind is convinced the spirit of Lancelot is her true love and wants no part of Lance's attention. Lance's own quest to retrieve the stolen sword forces him to confront the possibilities that his mortal enemy could be either his own twin brother Val or Rafe Mortmain, his childhood friend. Susan Carroll's mystical world will ensnare you with knightly deeds of honor and ladies fair as Lance and Rosalind seek their destiny while risking a deadly fate.


Family secrets

From the war-wracked Balkan hills to her hometown in Appalachia, photojournalist Memphis Maynard seeks the truth about past family secrets and her own future in Linda Anderson's The Secrets of Sadie Maynard. Memphis returns to the small West Virginia town of Yancey to solve the mystery of who murdered her grandmother, Sadie Maynard, decades earlier. Memphis is also haunted by her own past, which involves reporter Jake Bishop, her wartime lover and father of her daughter. As Memphis tries to unravel the truth about her grandmother's life and death, she must decide whether Cutter Tate, the grandson of the man believed to be Sadie's killer, will now be her ally and love -- or her worst danger.


Sandy Huseby writes and reviews from her homes in Fargo, North Dakota, and Nevis, Minnesota. She is online at SHuseby@aol.com.

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