Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: romance

  • An Editorial Review of “Deadly Recall” by Donnell Ann Bell

    An Editorial Review of “Deadly Recall” by Donnell Ann Bell

    Blue and Gold Clue 1st place badgeDonnell Ann Bell deftly intertwines a fast-paced thriller with an emotionally-charged love story. Deadly Recall will entice devotees of both genres, with added appeal for those who appreciate the southwestern setting of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

    The mystery begins when nine-year-old Eden Moran learns that her beloved mentor, Sister Beatrice, is leaving the school that very day. When released for recess, the devastated Eden dashes across the playground to St. Patrick’s Church with hope of finding the nun even though it was against the rules to leave the school yard. She knew it was a sin to disobey but she had to take the chance. Unseen by Father Munroe and Sister Beatrice, Eden witnesses an argument between them that turns physical. The sister falls and the priest is unable to wake her. The shocked Eden sneaks back out and races back to the school’s playground.  Here, panicked adults await her.  When they ask her where she’s been, the little girl tells them she couldn’t recall.

    Seventeen years later: Eden—who had acted so outrageously all those years ago that she was expelled from school and sent by her parents to live with her aunt—has returned to Albuquerque.  Now 26, she is an attractive and successful public defender.  Unfortunately, relations with her parents are still strained.

    It isn’t long before Eden meets Albuquerque Police Detective Kevin Dancer.  Attorney and cop can’t help but be attracted to each other, but the detective’s job is to put the bad guys in jail, while the public defender seeks to help the accused remain free. To add further complications, like Eden’s, Kevin’s family relations are troubled. Thus, both are wary of close relationships.

    The skeletal remains of one Celeste Lescano, aka Sister Beatrice, have been uncovered at a construction site inciting Detective Dancer to solve this cold case. When he investigates, witnesses recall Eden’s close childhood relationship with the nun. However, when Kevin questions Eden, she denies having known Sister Beatrice.

    Eden invites Kevin to attend her sister’s wedding at St. Patrick’s in hopes he’ll meet people who actually knew the woman. Father Munroe, now a bishop, officiates and attends the reception. Noting the bishop’s attraction to women, Detective Dancer pencils him in as a possible suspect.

    Murders and close calls occur bringing more twists and turns to the story. It seems that Sister Beatrice’s killer wants to make sure that Eden doesn’t have the chance to recall what she witnessed that fateful day—by doing whatever it takes to keep her quiet forever. The suspect list lengthens, with St. Patrick Church as the focal point, making Kevin and Eden at odds with each other even as their irrepressible attraction heats up and Eden’s life becomes increasingly in danger.

    Deadly Recall is a  page-turning thriller that comes to a breathless conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this emotion-packed action story by Donnell Ann Bell so much that her November release of Betrayed is on my personal reading list. In the meantime, I have ordered Bell’s earlier thriller, The Past Came Hunting. I look forward to reading more suspense mystery novels from this award winning author.

  • The Inn at Little Bend by Bobbi Groover

    Hardship has followed Grayson Ridge, a motherless girl named for the orphanage that took her in, from the moment she fought for her first breath. At fifteen, fearing she’s killed the man who “adopted” her as slave labor, Grayson bolts into the wilderness, where she steals clothes and cuts her hair to become River, a homeless boy on the run. Rescued from vicious vagabonds by a kinder, gentler drifter, River attaches to taciturn Drake Somerset—temporarily, she thinks, but their history has only just begun.

    What follows is a story of false identities, gender bending, and impassioned—if at times confused—love; Shakespeare’s As You Like It served up romance-style. Grayson’s many personae end up in classic predicaments, some truly horrifying and many nearly fatal, and she and Drake spend a good amount of time patching up each other’s wounds. That is, when they’re not challenging, exasperating, tormenting, and misinterpreting each other. The author has a fine ear for natural, quick-witted dialogue, and it’s one of the pleasures gleaned from reading this well-crafted tale.

    Ms. Groover has structured her narrative against backdrops that move effortlessly from Virginia’s plantations to the West and back again, fashioning her framework with details that are as unobtrusive as they are knowledgeable. The love story is rather refreshingly old-school: this is no thin plot on which to hang a string of bedroom romps.  Instead, it is the untangling of Grayson and Drake’s many masquerades and misunderstandings that intrigue the reader, although each character’s passions are given plenty of consideration—and yes, heat.

    Despite the quintessential American settings and psyches, a whiff of “Jane Eyre” blows through: the orphanage and the search for home; the young and moral woman resurrecting the heart and soul of a man who has closed himself off in tormented guilt; the themes of forgiveness and conscience over passion. What is decidedly different: the raw, almost desperate feistiness of River, the abundant humor, and the wonderful secondary character of Aggie, whose unrequited love for Drake never stops her from being Grayson’s friend and mentor.

    The Inn at Little Bend won first place in Chanticleer Book Reviews’ Published Novels Romance Western-Mystery category.

  • Home to Woefield by Susan Juby

    Home to Woefield by Susan Juby

    You might, at first glance, be doubtful about a story about poultry but don’t hesitate: This story is about way more than chickens. It will have you laughing out loud and wincing at the same time. Will the impetuous Prudence from Brooklyn, with her inheritance of worn-out Woefield Farm on Vancouver Island along with its looming foreclosure papers and its attached oddballs, ever succeed at fulfilling her dream of selling her own organic produce at the farmers’ market?

    Before long, you will soon find yourself rooting for Juby’s unpredictable characters instead of shaking your head in disbelief at their madcap antics and the ensuing mayhem. And, then, along come the chickens—who would have thought chickens could be the glue for the magic of it all?

    Juby immerses us in the endearingly hapless mayhem of her characters’ lives with their doubtful plans and out-right weaknesses: a banjo picking Earl with his crankiness and withdrawal from life, Seth with his very convoluted coming-of-age issues, a clip-board-carrying eleven-year-old girl who shows up unexpectedly on Prudence’s door step and meets challenges far beyond her years head-on, and then there is poor ol’ Bertie the depressed sheep. All of these misfits commensurate with the landscape of the barren and tattered Woefield Farm, and soon we know that they and the farm are all dependent on each other if they are to flourish.

    And, of course, there is romance! We follow Prudence again as she roars into romance in the same energetic and unpredictable ways that she faces all of her challenges with the unsuspecting, seemingly improbable, Eustace. Be ready for more laughing out loud while you are groaning  at the predicaments that Prudence keeps getting herself and everyone around her into.

    Juby’s use of the first person narrative style keeps the story immediate, enriching each character in our “mind’s eye” as each one’s perspective of the same events overlap. Her description of their thoughts and opinions is so lively and her characters such a riotous mix of people and animals that it makes you marvel you are not hearing from the chickens and the sheep, too.

    You will find yourself laughing at Juby’s wry wit and practical outlook and wishing you could look at your own life the way these characters look at each other’s lives. Her fresh humor provides lightness to their heavier issues and you will find yourself re-framing your first reactions to them as the story unfolds.

    Home to Woefield will make you think again about reaching toward the seemingly unreachable in your own life, about taking that leap of faith, and believing maybe, just maybe, some chickens will show up to make it all happen.

  • Vicarage Bench by Mimi Barbour

    Anyone looking for a heart-warming mix of romance and the new frontiers possibilities of time travel and body sharing will find The Vicarage Bench an endearing and engaging mix of the two.  Add suspense and the zing of strong sexual attractions and the result is a real winner. (more…)