The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine – Alex Brunkhorst

The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine

Alex Brunkhorst

MIRA, Sep 22 2015, $26.99

ISBN: 9780778317531

With the death of legendary Hollywood studio chief Joel Goldman, Los Angeles Times editor Phil Rubenstein, wanting a retrospective article, sends a low-level reporter Thomas Cleary to obtain quotes from the deceased’s fiftyish daughter Lily and other “guests”.  Rubenstein expects Cleary will fail re Lily who loathes journalists, but might get something useful from the intoxicated at Goldman’s Bel Air estate.

Upon meeting the reporter, Lily likes his Milwaukee Catholic honesty.  To his astonishment, she asks Thomas to stay for dinner.  At the repast, Thomas meets VIPs and their mates.  They all like the Midwesterner and invite him to special events to boost his career.  When Thomas attends a fundraiser at the Duplaine estate, no one else is there except Matilda Duplaine.  Though meeting for the first time, they talk for hours; he likes her but she bewilders him.  As they begin clandestine meetings, Matilda realizes she must leave home for the first time ever in her life if she is to continue to see Thomas.  They go to Hawaii, but his curiosity gets the better of him as he seeks to solve the gilded enigma he loves.

The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine is a captivating Hollywood drama that reads like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in a Jackie Collins setting.  Fans will empathize with Cleary who struggles with a desire to join the exclusive Hollywood club; yet also believes at the same time he is a minnow swimming amidst sharks.  However, it is the mystery of Matilda that keeps the audience’s attention because, like Cleary, we want to know more about her.

Harriet Klausner

Ransom Canyon – Jodi Thomas

Ransom Canyon
Jodi Thomas
Harlequin HQN, Aug 25 2015, $7.99
ISBN: 9780373788446

In Crossroads, Texas fortyish widower rancher Staten Kirkland knows firsthand how much tragedy hurts and lingers since the deaths of his wife and son; so he keeps his heart protected by never allowing anyone to get to close to him. His best friend reticent farmer Quinn O’Grady is a highly regarded pianist who studied music in New York two decades ago. When she makes a request of him, a stunned Staten reconsiders their relationship.

Former convict Yancy Grey settles in Crossroads with plans for his second chance based on exploiting local vulnerabilities. When he meets several retirees at a senior’s home, Yancy feels he hit the jackpot until he begins to care what happens to his elderly pigeons especially with the return of his felonious past.

Ranch-hand’s son teenager Lucas Reyes attends school and works on Staten’s spread to help pay for his future plans to attend college. On a trek with other teens into an abandoned house, he rescues the sheriff’s daughter Lauren Brigham.

Leaving behind A Place Called Harmony, Jodi Thomas begins a new engrossing series starring an appealing ensemble cast who brings the aptly named small town of Crossroads to life. Rotating leads between the three males, Ransom Canyon provides readers with diverse relationships that focus on different types of love at dissimilar ages.

Harriet Klausner

Beyond The Cherokee Trail – Lisa Carter

Beyond The Cherokee Trail

Lisa Carter

Abingdon Press, Sep 1 2015, $14.99

ISBN: 9781426795466

In 2018 the Prairie N— members claim the attack at the Trail of Trails Interpretive Center in Cartridge Cove, North Carolina.  They warn the staff to shut down the festival commemorating the 180th-year since the tragic forced march or else burn.  Linden Birchfield, who recently arrived from Raleigh, refuses as she believes in the importance of this event.  She becomes further animated when she finds a journal from a volunteer Trail of Tears’ marcher.

In 1837, Nurse Sarah Jane Hopkins accompanies the beleaguered Cherokee on their forced march from Georgia to Oklahoma in order to help the sick and injured.  Reading Sarah Jane’s odyssey encourages Linden to remain resolute though someone wants her and her program dead.  Though he has doubts about a relationship with Sarah Jane, Walker Crowe knows he loves this obstinate woman though he loathes her festival.

Beyond The Cherokee Trail is a fabulous drama due to the journal that brings alive the harrowing ordeal of the forced trek by someone who did not have to go.  The well-written romance surprisingly enhances the historical subplot because in spite of the man she cherishes and others demanding the gala aborted; Linden finds strength in what Sarah Jane willingly did.

Harriet Klausner

Come Away With Me – Karma Brown

Come Away With Me
Karma Brown
Mira, Aug 25 2015, $14.95
ISBN 9780778318323

In a festive mood on Christmas Eve, Chicago newlyweds Tegan and Gabe Lawson look forward to the birth of their first child. Gabe loses control of their car while driving over black ice. Their unborn dies in the ensuing accident leaving extremely depressed Tegan blaming her husband for their loss.

Feeling guilty about their baby’s death; Gabe also worries about his beloved wife who threatens to end their marriage. Believing reconnecting somewhat would ease their anguish and desperate to help his wife and himself; Gabe suggests they draw three locations from their “jar of spontaneity”. Tegan wants to tell him to drop dead, but reluctantly agrees to visit Hawaii, Italy and Thailand.

Come Away with Me is a fresh look at the impact on survivors from a personal tragedy. The couple begins their journey stalled in the earlier phases of grief; as Karma Brown makes a profound argument that mourning a loss is customized and though a person moves on one never fully heals because you never fully forget. This is a powerful emotional family drama.

Harriet Klausner

A Window Opens – Elisabeth Egan

A Window Opens
Elisabeth Egan
Simon & Schuster, Aug 25 2015, $26.00
ISBN: 9781501105432

Alice Pearse loves her life as a New Jerseyite wife, mother of three, dutiful daughter, year round dog walker, eternal children’s book fan, reading club member and part-time You magazine editor. Her perfect world collapses when her husband Nicholas angrily tosses a laptop at the Manhattan legal firm where he works after failing to make partner.

Nicholas tries to put a positive spin to his unemployable situation in which no reputable firm will hire him after his “terrible twos” temper tandem when he explains to astonished, shocked Alice he always wanted to open his own practice, which he plans to do in the suburbs. Realizing she needs full employment to pay the bills while her spouse struggles with his start-up, Alice catches a break when Genevieve Andrews hires at chic Scroll bookselling. Initially her life looks even better than before her husband’s infantile meltdown, but her perfect job proves hellish instead and her mate turns increasingly to alcohol to numb his failures.

This witty, mirthful middle class satire mocks the American dream especially skewering the super suburban soccer-grizzly mom perception and the SCOTUS concept that as Mitt Romney states: “corporations are people”. Although the pacing somewhat decelerates late in this fabulous family drama; since going full time employment while remaining full time (including on call) at home Alice (and her fans) feels like she fell through the rabbit hole.

Harriet Klausner

Wildest Dreams – Robyn Carr

Wildest Dreams
Robyn Carr
Mira, Aug 25 2015, $8.99
ISBN 9780778317494

In Thunder Point, Oregon, single Vietnamese-American mom Lin Su Simmons works long hours as a nurse caring for ALS sufferer Winnie Banks; while she also raises her ailing teenage son Charlie. Moving next door to the Simmons is world traveling triathlete champion and Neighborhood Club franchise manager Blake Smiley. He became an endurance runner as a means of surviving a nasty neighborhood while a child.

Blake likes the mom and son next door and both feel the same way about him. As Blake falls in love with both Simmons, they reciprocate. However, Lin Su becomes angry and upset, even cursing in Vietnamese, and more protective of her child when she learns of the secret her new neighbor (and former love interest) and her son concealed from her.

The ninth Thunder Point Oregonian romance (see One Wish and A New Hope) is an interesting family relationship drama that refreshingly focuses on an adopted Amerasian and those she loves. Lin Su owns the storyline, but realistically is unsympathetic due to her understandably rigid, judgmental personality.

Harriet Klausner

Starlight on Willow Lake – Susan Wiggs

Starlight on Willow Lake
Susan Wiggs
Mira, Aug 25 2015, $24.95
ISBN 9780778317951

In Avalon, New York, single mom of two young daughters (diabetic Ruby and older Cara) Faith McCallum struggles with insuring food is on the table. Filled with despair, Faith feels she finally got a break when the Bellamy family hires her as an in-house caretaker for Alice; whose husband died in the skiing accident that left her an acrimonious paraplegic whose anger has driven off several health care employees and household staff.

Knowing she cannot run from this chance to better the lives of her children, Faith faces Alice’s rage head on while encouraging her charge to not just accept her paralysis but to live again. Alice’s son Mason arrives at the mansion to insure a smooth transition so that he could avoid this place he detests and return to his preferable geographical electronic checkbook support to his mother and the Bellamy brood. Whereas Faith’s courage re Alice deserts her when she meets Mason; he keeps rationalizing why he has not fled Avalon for Broadway.

The eleventh Lakeshore Chronicles contemporary (see Candlelight Christmas and Return to Willow Lake) is a highly emotional family drama. The cast is three dimensional especially caused by the dysfunctional dynamics of ire and angst. The romance serves as an impetus into a profound look at the negative impacts of loss and anguish, and the healing of love and compassion.

Harriet Klausner

First Comes Love – Karen Wiesner

First Comes Love
Karen Wiesner
lulu.com, May 13 2015, $16.99
ISBN: 9781304898197

In Peaceful, Wisconsin, young teens Chad Feldmann and Winnie McBride have sex. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. To avoid the errors that most kids having kids do, Chad insists they remain celibate until they graduate and marry. Three years later, after the couple completes high school, they wed and raise their child Kally.

Winnie feels resentment towards her husband and daughter as she sacrificed much for them to become a family. As she works two jobs and takes care of little Kally, her disappointment is further fueled when Chad uses his college fund that his family banked for him to pursue his dreams. Chad knows he made foolish mistakes out of love and his constant fear his soulmate would leave him; but his recent actions to insure he can care for his two beloved females instead may fulfill his nightmarish prophecy.

The fourth fabulous Friendship Heirlooms series (see Forever And All That Jazz) star two wonderful protagonists as Chad and Winnie have love, a baby and marriage in that order, but apparently also a dying relationship. With a strong support cast (a trademark of Ms. Wiesner as for instance this lead couple were in the Family Heirlooms Series drama Glass Angels), fans will relish the return to Peaceful although what appears to be the end of a marriage.

Harriet Klausner

Be My Valentino – Sandra D. Bricker

Be My Valentino

Sandra D. Bricker

Abingdon Press, Aug 18 2015, $14.99

ISBN: 9781426711619

When Jessie Stanton’s husband Jack disappeared along with all their assets, she hired the only private investigator in Malibu that she could afford Danny Callahan to learn what the hell happened to her perfect fairy tale happily ever after life.  Accepting she didn’t know Jack, Jessie learns her spouse was not legally her husband and he was a con artist fleecing people (see On a Ring and a Prayer).

Though feeling beaten, she starts Adornments encouraged by Danny; who feels he owes Jessie as he recognizes her as his muse who reinvigorated him by example to get off the sands and back to work.  When Jack returns, he brings a second tsunami with him; since the FBI investigates his financial transactions extending by “marital” default into hers.  Though she likes Danny a lot and believes he reciprocates her deep feelings, Jessie has given up on loving relationships with males even expanding her doubts to include the Lord.  While her Louisiana grandfather prays for her; Jessie settles for being just friends (without benefits) with her Danny; even dressing him in formal ware for his undercover assignment.

The second Jessie Stanton tale is a fascinating Christian drama as the heroine, in spite of two devout religious males in her life, feels like a female Job with her not-husband being her serpent.  Grandpa’s back story and Danny’s clandestine gig add depth to an appealing storyline.  Though Be My Valentino comes across somewhat as a middle transitional book, readers will cherish the unsinkable Jessie.

Harriet Klausner

The Color of Light – Emilie Richards

The Color of Light
Emilie Richards
Mira, Jul 28 2015, $24.95
ISBN 9780778318248

In Asheville, North Carolina, Charlotte Hale gave her fortune to four women with the stipulation they use her money to help women in need. The beneficiaries created Goddesses Anonymous as they began assisting others. One of the recipients, Church of the Covenant Minister Analiese Wagner might have married someone else who since died, but always loved forbidden Father Isaiah Colburn.

Analiese meets the homeless Fowler family of four from Ohio in need of shelter, food and medicine (especially for the diabetic mom). She places them in the church parish house. However, angry council members believe she needed their permission and give her two weeks to find a more suitable abode even as Christmas will soon arrive. The reaction of her church leaders upset Analiese who cannot believe they would harm a family in need due to a power grab. She wonders if she should forget pastoring and return to journalism even as the love of her life Father Isiah has returned to see her while at the crossroads between remaining a priest and becoming a loving husband.

The fourth Goddesses Anonymous drama (see Mountain Away, Somewhere Between Luck and Trust, No River Too Wide) is an interesting inspirational in which the Fowlers (particularly young teen Shiloh) steal the show; as they personalize the Depression (to them it is not a recession). Reverend Ana feels overwhelmed, depressed and considers quitting, but still believes in the Lord and good deeds. The Father Isaiah subplot augments the tale of the minister drowning under diverse pressure, but refusing to give up the good fight.

Harriet Klausner