Today's Special - - Sara Arden

Today we welcome Sara Arden and the TLC End of Summer Blog Tour to the Romance Dish. 

Sara Arden has always been fascinated by things better left in the dark. She wrote her first story after watching The Exorcist at a slumber party. Like all writers, Sara's held a variety of jobs from an operations supervisor to a corrections officer. But as Hemingway said, "Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it." So she traded in her cuffs for a keyboard and is married to her very own Prince Charming. Sara joins us today with a true story of summer lovin'. Welcome, Sara!    

 

A True Story of Summer Lovin’ 
by Author Sara Arden

There was a boy.

Isn’t there always? But it’s the summer I’ll never forget.

He was tall and muscled; his skin had this surreal golden glow from being outside on the boat all day fishing and water-skiing. His hair fell just over his shoulders in that swoop that only rebellious young men seem to acquire.

He was a rebel without a cause—and as an adult, I can say mostly without a clue. He wore a leather jacket with no shirt, all so we could bask in the glow of his golden chest, and ripped jeans that were slung low on his hips, giving us a prime view of abs of the gods. We won’t even talk about his oblique muscles.

I was fifteen and I’d decided he was the one. Not my forever, because I wanted to explore the world, travel, meet tons of new people from different places. I wanted my forever to be one of those people. But the one, this guy, I wanted him to be my first experience. All well and good, but for someone who could read about it but couldn’t talk about it…that would be interesting.

Our grandparents were friends. His grandpa lived across from my grandma and he allowed us to use his dock for lake access.

The whole summer I kept trying to work up the nerve to tell him. We spent almost every day together because his grandpa loved me. Told me I was “good for the boy” because he’d been in a bit of trouble and his grandpa thought I was a good girl. Wouldn’t let him take the truck anywhere unless he took me, too. (I learned how to drive that truck down dirt roads going one hundred miles per hour, and flipped it muddin’, and Grandpa never said a word about it. But he’d slip me a beer now and again, too.)

We were in that truck and The Boy had just cracked another dirty joke and I’d punched him for the fortieth time that day. He was developing a bruise. I told him it would be something for him to remember me by.

He pulled the truck over and turned it off. He looked me straight in the eyes and told me if I wanted him to remember me I should sleep with him.

Hope, fear, joy, confusion—it all welled up inside of me like a fountain. I didn’t have to figure out how to tell him. He did it for me. But instead of saying yes, I told him that I was pretty sure he’d remember me longer if I didn’t.

I was so mad at myself at the time for saying that. I tried to backpedal the night before I left. I went over to see him and he’d been working out…muscles bulging, body slick with sweat. He hugged me and told me I was right—that he’d remember me forever and he was glad.

He wasn’t the one and I’m glad, too. I think I remember him because we didn’t. I remember his face more clearly that summer in sharper definition than I remember the one where the big it did happen.

What about you? Do you have any memories of summer loves? Share with me in the comments below!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Finding Glory

By Sara Arden

Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: HQN Books (May 26, 2015)

Once upon a time, he was just a hopeless cause from the wrong side of Glory, Kansas. And he’ll be damned if he’ll let anyone drag him back down after finally clawing his way out.

Everyone knows that Gina Townsend is a saint, always taking care of everyone around her. And now she’s trying to be a mother to her six-year-old niece, Amanda Jane. But the girl’s biological father isn’t helping matters. The scruffy, gangly boy Gina remembers has returned to Glory a sexy, successful man, but Reed Hollingsworth is the only thing standing between her and losing Amanda Jane to foster care.

Betrayed that neither Townsend sister bothered to tell him he was a father until he had money, Reed’s still not about to shirk his responsibilities. So when he demands Gina move in with him as part of Amanda Jane’s custody agreement, he tries not to notice pretty much everything about her—especially the way his solemn-faced daughter laughs when they play together.

Raising a child together, Reed and Gina learn that some dreams come and go, but some are a spark that burns eternal…

Purchase Links

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Want to keep up with Sara? Subscribe to her newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/brHv3L or connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SaraArdenBooks, and www.saraarden.com.

END OF SUMMER BLOG TOUR GIVEAWAY DISCLOSURE:

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER.  Purchase or acceptance of a product offer does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes opens 8/3/2015 at 12:01 AM (EDT) and closes 9/1/2015 at 11:59 PM (EDT).  Enter online athttps://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/82ae250c9/. Open to legal residents of the U.S. and Canada who have reached the age of majority or older.  Void where prohibited by law. Void in Quebec.  One (1) prize available to be won consisting of: one (1) print copy of each of Back to You by Lauren Dane, Finding Glory by Sara Arden, Taking the Heat by Vitoria Dahl,Can’t Fight This Feeling by Christie Ridgway, and Second Chance with the Billionaire  by Janice Maynard; one (1) e-book copy of Riding Dirty by Jill Sorensen; one (1) Harlequin tote bag; and a Fifty dollar ($50.00 USD) VISA gift card (Total ARV: $92.00 USD). Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received.  Full details and Official Rules available online at https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/82ae250c9/. Sponsor: Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

OTHER TOUR STOPS:

Monday, August 3rd: Reading Reality – Lauren Dane guest post, “Hurley Family Summer Itinerary“

Monday, August 3rd: Reading Reality – review – Back to You

Wednesday, August 5th: The Sassy Bookster – Janice Maynard guest post, “Sock it To Me Cake“

Wednesday, August 5th: The Sassy Bookster – review – Second Chance With The Billionaire

Friday, August 7th: The Bookish and the Romantic – Sara Arden guest post, “Lemonade,” and review – Finding Glory

Friday, August 7th: The Sassy Bookster – review – Finding Glory

Monday, August 10th: A Chick Who Reads – Christie Ridgway guest post, “Summer Crushes“

Monday, August 10th: Romance Novels for the Beach – review of Taking the Heat

Wednesday, August 12th: Urban Girl Reader – Victoria Dahl guest post, “Summer Adventure“

Wednesday, August 12th: The Sassy Bookster – review – Taking the Heat

Friday, August 14th: From the TBR Pile – Back to You excerpt

Friday, August 14th: The Sassy Bookster – review – Back to You

Monday, August 17th: Mignon Mykel {Reviews} – Jill Sorenson guest post, “A Sexy End-of-Summer Bucket List“

Wednesday, August 19th: Snowdrop Dreams – Janice Maynard guest post, “Summer Vacation“

Friday, August 21st: The Romance Dish – Sara Arden guest post. “True Story of Summer Love“

Friday, August 21st: Read Love Blog – review – Back to You

Monday, August 24th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers – Christie Ridgway guest post, “Romantic Summer Dates“

Monday, August 24th: The Sassy Bookster – review – Can’t Fight This Feeling

Tuesday, August 25th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers – review – Can’t Fight This Feeling

Wednesday, August 26th: Read Love Blog – Victoria Dahl guest post, “Summer Fling Cocktail Recipe“

Thursday, August 27th: A Chick Who Reads – reviews of Finding Glory, Can’t Fight This Feeling, Taking the Heat

Friday, August 28th: Romance Novels for the Beach – Jill Sorenson guest post, “Virtual Motorcycle Road Trip“

Friday, August 28th: The Sassy Bookster – review – Riding Dirty

Sunday, August 30th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers – review – Finding Glory

Date TBD: Mignon Mykel {Reviews} – reviews of all 6

Review - - The Lure of the Moonflower

The Lure of the Moonflower

By Lauren Willig

Publisher: NAL

Release Date: August 4, 2015

The most recent assignment of Jane Wooliston, the English spy known as the Pink Carnation, leads her to French-occupied Portugal where her task is to locate Queen Maria. The Portuguese monarch was supposed to have been on a ship with others of the royal family on their way to Brazil. Instead she has disappeared. There are several possibilities as to who is behind the disappearance of the queen who, mad and violent though she may be, can still be a useful political tool. Jane knows that it is imperative that she find the queen before the French do.

Jane is working at a disadvantage because she no longer has her well-trained cadre of operatives to aid her. Moreover, her knowledge of Portuguese is limited to what she learned in a few weeks study. For the duration of this assignment, she is uncomfortably dependent upon the help of a single agent assigned to her, an agent as famous for his shifting allegiances and his reluctance to follow orders as for his formidable skills. The notorious Moonflower, former French agent, is definitely not an operative with whom Jane would have chosen to work.

The Moonflower, also known as Jack Reid, is in Rossio Square in Lisbon as instructed to meet his contact, but he is not expecting that contact to be a dark-haired courtesan wearing Paris fashions. When the courtesan discards her dark curls, greets him by name, and identifies herself as the Pink Carnation, Jack laughs. It seems impossible that this woman with her pure profile and steady eyes could be the spy who struck fear in the hearts of the French. Once he accepts that Jane is the Pink Carnation, he is skeptical of her mission. He advises her to “cut her losses and go home.”  Of course, Jane is not about to give up on an assignment, and with no small effort, she persuades Jack to do his part.

Soon the two are assuming various disguises and engaged in feats of derring-do as they complete their mission and see the Queen to safety. Other characters from the series make appearances, including the infamous French spymaster, the Gardener, and the indomitable Miss Gwen (now Mrs. Reid and stepmother to Jack). Jane’s story grows more poignant as her flaws and vulnerabilities are exposed, and Jack’s behavior becomes more comprehensible as his point of view is added to what others have revealed.

The parallel contemporary narrative of Eloise Kelly and Colin Selwick reaches its happily-ever-after ending as their wedding day approaches with all the dramatis personae present, accounted for, and true to character, but not before the twenty-first-century characters have an adventure of their own. No spoilers here since the novel opens with Eloise’s borrowing the words of another heroine:  “Reader, I married him.”

The Lure of the Moonflower concludes Willig’s popular Pink Carnation series. Before Willig wrote the first word of this novel, it was burdened with high expectations. While there are doubtless readers who have sampled a few books in the series, there is also a large core group of readers who have been invested in this series through more than a decade and a dozen books. As a member of this group, I can only say that the concluding book was everything I hoped it would be.

Although readers will find the tongue-in-cheek approach, the banter that delights, and the risky adventures that have characterized the series present in this book as well, they will also find a Jane seasoned by her experiences, less certain of who she is, and more aware of what her choices have cost her. In one moment of insight, Jane realizes that the game has changed: “But the game had turned darker somewhere along the way. It had gone from a game of wits to a struggle for survival, where there were no points for cleverness, only for results.”

Later she ponders the cost of the “game”:

Piece by piece, Jane felt herself washing away, like a pebble in a pond, smoothed into featurelessness by the successive waves that crashed over her, until there was nothing left there that was uniquely her own. She wondered dimly what the girl who had first come to Paris five years before would think of the woman she had become. Would she be proud of her achievements? And would she long after all that had been lost? So very, very much lost. Lost ideas, lost ideals, lost comrades.

Jack is her match precisely because he does understand Jane’s confusing mix of emotions. Beginning as opposites, she the idealist motivated by a noble purpose and he a pragmatist who sells his skills, they find they are remarkably similar in their defiance of labels (she as woman, he as a mixed race bastard) and in their lostness and loneliness. Jack is also that rare male who can accept Jane as an equal. “I’m not asking you to be an ornament. Or stand on a pedestal. I’m asking you to slog through the mud with me, blisters and all. If you’ll have me.”

She does indeed have him, and Willig assures us that their life after marriage continues to be extraordinary. Eloise and Colin’s HEA completes the picture. No loose threads to tease and taunt in this one. Mark me one deliciously satisfied reader, albeit one mourning the end of the series. 

If you have enjoyed other Pink Carnation books, add this one to your TBR immediately. If you have not read any of the other Pink Carnation books, I recommend the full series. Although The Passion of the Purple Plumeria (Book 10) is my top favorite with The Mischief of the Mistletoe a close second, all twelve books are keepers. I know I’ll be rereading them, and I’ll also remind myself that Willig has not ruled out The Return of the Pink Carnation.

~Janga

Susan Wiggs Winner

The randomly chosen winner of a copy of

Starlight on Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs is:

Mickey

Congratulations!

Please send your full name and mailing address to us at:

theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com

Review - - My Very Best Friend

My Very Best Friend

By Cathy Lamb

Publisher: Kensington

Release Date: July 28, 2015

   

Charlotte Mackintosh is a scientist by training but a writer by profession. Under the pseudonym Georgia Chandler, she has published nine wildly successful romance novels featuring Mackenzie Rae Dean, a time-traveling heroine who roams the world saving lives, taking lovers, and longing for reunion with her soul mate, the only man she truly loves. Despite her success, Charlotte is a reclusive writer who refuses to go on book tours or attend conferences, choosing instead to remain in her home on Whale Island, off the coast of Washington, where her closest companions are her four cats and her only visitors are her mother and her ex-husband and his current partner.

Born in St. Ambrose, Fife, Scotland, Charlotte spent the first fifteen years of her life in that village. The cherished only child of a red-haired, bagpipe-playing Scottish farmer and his American feminist wife, Charlotte enjoyed an idyllic childhood filled with her father’s stories and the imaginative worlds created by Charlotte, her life-long best friend Bridget Ramsay, Bridget’s brother Toran, and their friend Pherson Hameldon. The idyll ended abruptly with her father’s death. Charlotte and her mother left Scotland for America, and in the twenty years since, neither has returned. When their long-term tenant dies, Charlotte’s mother asks Charlotte to visit St. Ambrose to oversee the necessary repairs to the family cottage and sell it. The trip will also give Charlotte an opportunity to check on Bridget from whom Charlotte has not heard in several months.

Charlotte finds that the cottage where generations of Mackintoshes had lived has been turned into a pigsty. Just cleaning it out will be a horrendous task—and then there are more substantial repairs that must be made. Clearly Charlotte’s stay in St. Ambrose will be longer than she planned. That’s not a hardship, however, since old friends and new ones and Scotland itself give her the sense that she belongs in this place with these people. Best of all, Toran is just as wonderful as Charlotte remembers, and the thirty-five-year-old Charlotte is soon as much in love with him as the fifteen-year-old Charlotte was.

But all is not perfect. Bridget has disappeared, and despite all Toran’s efforts, including hiring a private investigator, no one has been able to find her. Charlotte also learns from Toran and through a series of diary-like letters that Bridget has written to Charlotte over the two decades they have lived on different continents that the life Charlotte thought Bridget was living has been all fabrication. Instead, Bridget’s life has been filled with horrors and pain, physical and emotional. Charlotte loves Bridget, but she wonders since she knew so little of Bridget’s real life if they truly were best friends. Life will bring devastating sorrow and soaring happiness before Charlotte finds the answer to her question.

Cathy Lamb’s first-person narrative mixes past and present, tears and laughter in a poignant tale about love on many levels. This is a story about love of place, love of family, love between friends, romantic love, and even the love that is self-acceptance--and each story thread touches the reader’s heart. Lamb takes her reader from moments of outright hilarity to moments of great tenderness to moments that may require a full box of tissues to read through.

This is not a perfect book. It is long (480 pages). I think it could have been pruned a bit without losing anything. Also, some of the transitions from present to past are disconcertingly abrupt. But there are so many things I loved about the book that its imperfections seemed negligible. In addition to Charlotte and her friendship with Bridget, the top five things I loved include:

        1. The things that made me laugh, really laugh--loudly. I’m not a cat person, but I found irresistibly amusing the image of Charlotte’s walks with her four cats in their assigned places in their pink stroller. Her flight to Scotland, the inebriated conclusions to the meetings of the St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Garden, and Gobble group, and her conversations with her agent also left me giggling madly.

        2. The little things. The games of the TorBridgePherLotte fearsome foursome in memory and in reenactment touched me, and I thought the secondary romance between Chief Constable Ben Harris and Gitanjali Chavan was funny and sweet. I also found Ben Harris’s unwavering affection for Charlotte’s father endearing.

        3. Charlotte’s makeover. It is one of the best ever because Charlotte needed it for herself but not for Toran, who saw her as beautiful even when she was at her most frumpish.

        4. The solution to the disappearance of Father Angus Cruickshank.  I smugly thought I had it figured out, but I was off by a generation.

        5. Toran, a wonderful, heart-stealing character. I’m now convinced that the reason I’m single is that I never took a trip to Scotland.

Reading this list makes the book sound lovely and light, and it is. But it is also weighty and sometimes unbearably sad. Charlotte’s journey is both literal and metaphorical. She finds not only the love of her life in St. Ambrose but also her heritage and a self quite different from the person she was on her island. Bridget’s return to St. Ambrose raises the whole issue of what home is and how the prodigal is received as well as the issue of making judgments based on lies and illusions. The time-travel theme introduced with Charlotte’s romance novels (and I think their inevitable teasing reminder of another time-traveling heroine and her Scottish soul-mate) acquires quite another meaning as Charlotte and Bridget engage in their own time travels, individually and together.

As much as this is the story of all that Charlotte gains through her return to her native land, it is also a book about loss and how humans deal with grief. Charlotte experienced great loss at a young age, but the fact that she cannot visit her father’s grave reveals that she still has much to learn. By the end of her journey, she has learned this truth: “They never leave our hearts, the ones we love. . . . Their love lives on, breathes on, carries on, and eventually gives us peace, the memories holding us in a hug.”

If you like books that make you laugh and cry and fill your heart with characters you cannot forget, grab a copy of this book. As for me, I’m checking out Cathy Lamb’s backlist.

~Janga

Review - - The Color of Light

The Color of Light

By Emilie Richards 

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: July 28, 2015

After speaking at a rally for the homeless where she had a rather too close and uncomfortable encounter with one homeless man, the Reverend Analiese Wagner returns to the Church of the Covenant in Asheville, North Carolina, where she serves as senior pastor, to find a homeless family camping in the church parking lot. Ana must make a decision. Should she allow the family to stay in the empty apartment on an upper floor of the parish house, even if she suspects that some of the executive committee members of the church council will not approve? Deciding to do what she knows to be the right thing and worry about permission later, she moves the family of four into the small apartment.

With the position of assistant pastor vacant, all the pastoral responsibilities have fallen on Ana, who is feeling overwhelmed by the demands. These feelings are exacerbated by contentious committee meetings, some church members’ lingering questions about the fitness of a female pastor, and Ana’s own consciousness of her looming fortieth birthday. Although she is devoted to the other members of Goddesses Anonymous, a group of women committed to using the resources left to them in the will of Charlotte Hale to help other women (One Mountain Away), Ana is better at listening to their problems than sharing her own, thus adding loneliness to other pressures.

The church agrees to allow the homeless family to remain in the apartment for a period of two weeks, but the decision is not unanimous. Ana knows that those opposed to the presence of homeless people on church property will not accept defeat quietly. Her heart is moved by the plight of the Fowler family: Herman “Man” and his wife Belle have almost surrendered to despair after having lost their jobs, their home, and their very identity. Belle’s health has been jeopardized, and both parents fear their children being taken from them. Fourteen-year-old Shiloh, highly intelligent and competent, has become the de facto head of the family, fighting to keep them together and to provide schooling for her younger brother Dougie who has ADHD. Ana knows that temporary shelter does little to address the family’s problems, and to her other responsibilities, she adds efforts to enroll the children in school, to find health care for Belle and work for Man, and to challenge her congregation to supply the Fowlers’ needs beyond shelter. Even well-intentioned church members sometimes act insensitively, leaving their pastor to soothe injured spirits. And all the while Ana is pushing to extend the time the Fowlers have in the apartment.

Help comes from a surprising source when Isaiah Colburn reappears in Analiese’s life. It was Isaiah, then a young Roman Catholic parish priest in San Diego, who mentored Ana at a crucial time in her life.  Widowed after several years of a meaningless marriage and finding success as a broadcast journalist increasingly empty, Ana was riveted by the way Isaiah lived out his calling in active service to his poor congregation.  It was he who recognized her questioning heart and urged her to listen for answers; it was he who encouraged her to attend seminary. It was he with whom Ana fell hopelessly in love.

Isaiah is a much needed ally in helping the Fowlers. He befriends each of them; even the prickly Shiloh likes him. However, Ana is not sure why Isaiah is in North Carolina, and he is in no hurry to provide answers, perhaps because he is still struggling with his own questions. Regardless, Ana is certain that his being there means changes in her life. Is she prepared for all the changes Isaiah’s presence could bring?

The Color of Light is the fourth book in Richards’s Goddesses Anonymous series (after One Mountain Away, Somewhere Between Luck and Trust, and No River Too Wide). In the earlier books, Analiese Wagner is the wise, compassionate minister to whom others turn for comfort and advice. In this book, she is more fully revealed as a complicated, flawed character with wounds, uncertainties, and battles that make her a more interesting and more authentically human character.

Her relationship with Isaiah is a fascinating, layered one. Ana recognizes that part of his attraction in the beginning was that Isaiah was safe to love. Scarred from a marriage to a man who was habitually unfaithful and chronically self-absorbed and weary of other men who view her only as a potential sexual conquest, Ana finds in Isaiah someone who sees her as she is, values her, and imposes on her only the expectation that she be fully herself. Her longing for him when she is overwhelmed is as much for that safe mentor and confidant as it is for the man with whom she is in love. Reconnecting with him makes her newly aware of how much she has missed him and confirms her feelings for him. Nevertheless, when Isaiah confesses that he cut himself off from her because his feelings for her were in conflict with his vocation, Ana is not fully comfortable with the change in their friendship.

Isaiah too is a wonderfully complex and deeply human character. His crisis is less a crisis of faith than a crisis of calling. Unhappy in the administrative position in which the Church has placed him, he questions whether he is fulfilling God’s purpose for his life or merely obeying orders from the Church hierarchy.  He is also determined that his feelings for Ana not be his reason for leaving the priesthood. He addresses this concern directly:  “I knew this couldn’t be about you, Ana, that my decision had to be independent of what I’d felt for you all those years ago and might feel again.”

Because The Color of Light is women’s fiction rather than conventional contemporary romance, there is no guarantee of an HEA for Ana and Isaiah. The tension between an anticipated HEA and the very real and not always predictable obstacles to it is sustained until the very end. The possibility that one form of happiness must be sacrificed to attain another keeps the reader eagerly turning pages. Consequently, the reader’s engagement with the story reaches a rare intensity.

Although the novel is not an inspirational, it addresses key theological issues and challenges readers who share the faith of the characters to contemplate the way they live out their beliefs. I found myself wishing that Ana could deliver her sermon on the Good Samaritan at my church. And I will be sharing Ana’s words about the church: “The church is not a work of art. It's difficult and sometimes dirty and disappointing, but a church is about the people we befriend, the love we give, the difference we make. A church is the unflinching light of day and the rainbow-colored light of hope. We need both. The real life of a church is always beyond the walls of its sanctuary.”

I’ve been reading Emilie Richards’s books for more than two decades. The ER keepers on my bookshelves include category romances, a pair of unusual paranormals, a handful of mysteries, more than a dozen books from four series, and a single title (Prospect Street) that is on my all-time top 100 list. I’ve loved every book in the Goddesses Anonymous series, but this one is special. It’s going on that list with Prospect Street.

If you are a fan of books in which the romantic and the real intersect, books that provide a rich, emotionally satisfying reading experience, or books that leave you thinking long thoughts, I highly recommend this book.

~Janga

On Second Thought...

Simple Jess

By Pamela Morsi,

Publisher: Kiel Publishing

Release Date: June 1, 2011

(Originally published by Jove, 1996)

 

It has been almost two years since Althea Winslow was widowed, and the tiny Ozark town of Marrying Stone, Arkansas, has decided that it is time for Althea to remarry. She can’t farm the fertile land that she has inherited, and leaving “the best corn bottom” in the area fallow goes against the values of the agricultural community. Everyone is also agreed that Althea’s three-year-old son needs a father, and a young, healthy woman like Althea needs a man and more children. Althea’s interfering mother-in-law, who wants to ensure that the land remain in the hands of the McNees (the family to which she and Althea belong by birth), insists that Eben Baxley, a lazy young man partial to drink and pretty women and cousin to Althea’s late husband, is the best choice. The owner of the general store pushes his son, Oather Phillips, to marry Althea.

Althea, whose father remarried after her mother’s death and moved away, leaving Althea to be passed from relative to relative like an unwanted package, resists all these efforts. Determined that her son will never be pushed aside in favor of a new family, she vows never to remarry. In a temper after dealing with her mother-in-law and others advice givers, Althea decides to sell her husband’s hunting dogs as a gesture of independence.

Deprived of oxygen at birth when the umbilical cord twisted around his neck, Jesse Best was slow of mind. Known throughout Marrying Stone as Simple Jess, he is both part of the community and set apart from it. Secure in the love his father and his sister Meggie and her husband and daughter have for him, Jess knows that he is a man but one who is different.  He longs to be like other men who have hunting dogs, guns, and women. His father has told him that he can never have a woman, but Jess dreams of owning a dog and a gun. When he overhears Althea declare her intention to sell her husband’s hunting dogs, thoughts of buying the dogs fill Jess’s mind. Jess is elated when Althea proposes that he work for her doing the work necessary to prepare for what could be a tough winter in exchange for all four dogs.

As Jess works for her, Althea comes to understand that Jess is far more than the simple-minded child she had thought him to be. He is kind, strong, hard-working, and patient with her son, and he has the blond good looks for which the Piggots are known. He is also far more knowledgeable about what needs to be done on the farm than Althea is. For his part, Jess is proud to work for Althea. He takes pleasure in seeing that she and young Paisley have all they need for the winter. And he does appreciate her cooking.

However, those who want to see Althea married persist in their efforts. A kangaroo court imperfectly manipulated by Eben gives Althea an ultimatum—choose a husband from the two men (Eben and Oather) who have offered for her by Christmas Day or her family will make the choice for her. But as Christmas draws closer, each day yields new evidence of Jess’s place in Althea’s life and in her heart. 

I’m a huge Morsi fan whatever the genre in which she writes, but there is something special about her American historicals set in the early decades of the twentieth century. Courting Miss Hattie, Garters, Wild Oats, Something Shady—they all have a place on my keeper shelves, but even among this group of exceptional novels, Simple Jess is a standout and Jesse Best is one of the most extraordinary heroes in romance fiction. Morsi takes a character who would be unusual even in a secondary role (as he is in Marrying Stone, his sister Meggie’s story) and makes him the heart of this book. She reveals the sweetness, the strength, and the wisdom of Simple Jess through the character’s thoughts and actions and through the reactions of others to him. When Eben Baxley meddles in the bargain struck for the dogs and announces that he will wed Althea and Jess will no longer be needed on the farm, Jess understands that Eben is usurping authority, but Jess is unable to process his thoughts quickly and clearly enough to express them.

Jesse's mind wouldn't work. It wouldn't order up the terms and phrases in the order needed. The only thoughts that came to him were hurt and angry ones. The only words he could conjure up were no, no, no. And he couldn't just say that.

He clamped down his teeth and furrowed his brow trying to force the right words, the real words, the words he wanted to say into his brain. But they would not come. It was one of those times when Jesse hated being simple. It was one of those times when he most wanted to be like other men. It was one of those times when he had to hold his peace because his mind was not their equal.

Later, when Althea’s small-minded mother-in-law aims a thinly veiled insult at Jess and the “bad blood” that produced him, Meggie eloquently responds.

“Jesse is a strong, loving, generous man. He works hard. In some ways harder than other men, because things in this world don't come easy to Jesse. He is good and fair to everyone that he meets. That isn't something that comes any more natural to him than it does to you and me. I don't believe, as some will say, that he's touched by angel spirits or not all of this earth. I believe he is every bit as human and as fraught with human frailties as the rest of us. He is not special or favored or a better man than others you'll meet, but he is every bit as good as any. I am proud to call him my brother. And I would be just as proud to have a son or daughter who was like him.”

Althea demonstrates how far she has come in appreciating the man that Jess is when she responds to Meggie’s words:

“Your brother is the most genuine, honorable, trustworthy man I have ever met in my life. You just know that if Jesse makes you a promise, he will keep it.”

Although less rare than Jess, Althea is also a richly drawn character. She is very much a woman of her time and place, confronting the restrictions imposed upon her with equal measures of courage and pragmatism. The secondary characters too are developed with a deft and generous hand. Jess’s father, Onery Best, loves his son and has passed on to Jess his own definition of manhood. Granny Piggott is a delight, fully herself and yet clearly in the line of the wise, old hag popular in folklore. Even Eben and Oather are dimensional characters with histories and distinct personalities who act credibly within those contexts. In the tradition of authors who understand the importance of place, Morsi makes Marrying Stone a character as well. My only complaint is that Baby Paisley with his desire to be the man of the house and his slipping off to trail Jess on hunting trips seems incredibly precocious for a three-year-old, but perhaps three-year-olds were more mature a century ago.

Like many of my favorite books, this one moves me to laughter and to tears, and these characters earn a cherished place in my memory. Simple Jess truly is a classic of romance fiction. I give it my full-hearted, flag-waving, balloon-releasing recommendation, and I’m so happy that, thanks to its digital release, it is now easily available to new readers. I also recommend the two connected books: Marrying Stone, which precedes Simple Jess, and The Love Sick Cure, which features another Jesse, this one as a heroine who starts out with a broken heart but finds a cure in Marrying Stone.

 ~Janga

Simple Jess

Marrying Stone

The Love Sick Cure

Review - - Truly Sweet

Truly Sweet

By Candis Terry

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: July 28, 2015

After a tour of duty in Afghanistan, multiple surgeries, and a stay in a rehab facility, Jake Wilder, the youngest of Joe and Jana Wilder’s sons, is back in Sweet, Texas. His family is overjoyed to have Jake home, and while the family has not ceased to mourn the loss of eldest brother Jared and patriarch Joe, they are ready to celebrate with a big Wilder bash that includes not only all the Wilders and their extended family but a host of friends and neighbors as well. Jake loves his family, and he is happy to be with them again. But he is not really in the mood to celebrate. Everyone sees the cane he uses and recognizes that his leg is not fully healed, but they can’t see the heavy burden of guilt that still festers in Jake’s soul. He cannot forgive himself because his best friend Eli Harris died in Afghanistan, leaving a pregnant wife to grieve him. Jake believes that when he failed to keep his promise to see that Eli returned safely to his wife, Jake forfeited his right to happiness.

Joe and Jana Wilder made Annabelle Morgan and her sister Abby feel like part of the Wilder family when the girls were growing up mostly ignored by their own parents, but Annie never looked at Jake as a brother. At sixteen, she had a crush on Jake. Although Jake may have treated her as a confidante, he never saw her as a partner in romance.  After Jake joined the Marines, Annie left Sweet determined to stop dreaming about Jake and build a life for herself in Seattle. That didn’t go exactly as she planned, and now she is back in Sweet, a single mother with a one-year-old son, waitressing at the diner and trying to get her candy-making business started. Her feelings for Jake are as strong as ever, but she is no more hopeful than she was as a teen that Jake is going to notice her.

Annie is wrong. Jake definitely notices that Annie is all grown up and just as mouthy as ever. He can’t ignore her, no matter how he tries. Not only does he find her too sexy for his comfort, but she doesn’t hesitate to speak tough truths when others are being overly cautious not to say the wrong thing. However, no matter how tempting he finds Annie, she makes it clear that she deserves better than being a booty call for Jake, and Jake thinks he can’t offer the forever bond that Annie wants.

Truly Sweet is the fifth and final book in Terry’s Sweet, Texas series. Jake is just as wounded, just as swoon-worthy, and just as reluctant to believe in happily-ever-after as his older brothers. His struggles to figure out what he is going to do with his life now that his war injury has rewritten his plans as well as to resist Annie who offers the healing he needs and sweet Max who captures Jake’s heart with his grin tug at the reader’s heartstrings. Annie is a wonderful heroine—tough and vulnerable, a dreamer with a strong streak of pragmatism, and a mother committed to seeing that her son has a childhood very different from her own. Both characters inspire affection and make it easy to root for them to find happiness together.

The Wilders are all present and accounted for in this book, from the widowed Jana, who gets a second chance at romance, to the newest additions to the family—human and animal. Readers will find much to smile about with the banter Jake and Annie exchange, Jana’s not-so-subtle meddling, and Miss Giddy the goat, who has her own secret.  But Jake’s connection with a dog that is, as Annie instinctively knows, just the friend the hurting marine needs may evoke tears, and I confess I needed more than one hanky for the scene with Jake weeping as he rocks his niece and Max. Terry also gives her readers an epilogue to delight the hearts of readers who love a big, satisfying, emotional finale to a series.

This is a series that has failed to get the attention it deserves. Fans of small-town romance with large and lively families, couples whose stories combine sweetness and sizzle, and a conclusion worth celebrating should definitely check out Terry’s Sweet, Texas books. And Truly Sweet may be the best in the series. It is on my recommended list.

~Janga