Carrie Goes Off The Map, by Phillipa Ashley

With a Phillipa Ashley novel, you know just what you're getting before you open the book to the first page. There are fascinating locales, endearing protagonists, quirky secondary characters, an amazing love story and a gloriously happy ending. Carrie Goes Off The Map follows this trail perfectly.

Carrie Brownhill and Huw Brigstocke have been together for ten years. Their lives are thoroughly interwoven at Huw's farm, where Carrie works (when she's not doing amateur theater) and where the two of them live. None of this prevents Huw from breaking off their engagement just two weeks before the scheduled wedding festivities. Carrie is left with a broken heart, no home and no job. When she hears (in a rather atypical way) four months later, that Huw is marrying someone else, she tries to show her indignation up close and personal. She's stopped on the church steps by Dr. Matt Landor, their friend from University who is home on leave from his stint as a charity doctor in Tuman.  Embarrassed by the emotional state she's been driven to, Carrie resolves to get over Huw once and for all and get on with her life. She and her friend Rowena plan a trip to the Continent to see a bit of the world before moving on to the next part of their lives. And Dolly, the so-named VW camper who plays a big and beloved part in the novel, is their vehicle of choice. When a last minute acting job prevents Rowena from going with Carrie, a substitution is made, and Matt takes her place.

The book really comes into its own as Matt and Carrie head, not for the Continent as Carrie had hoped,   but to Cornwall. As the destinations come and go, Matt and Carrie get closer, almost without realizing it. There's this slow dawning of understanding between the two that deepens as the miles pass. For Carrie, there's "something" about Matt. And for Matt, there's that same "something" about Carrie. And when they finally do realize that what they really want is each other, it's Matt, the serial commitment-phobe, who wants something more permanent. And Carrie, scarred from her experience with Huw and desperate not to lose her heart without an impossible guarantee, steps away.  Matt returns to Tuman, their relationship now reduced to email and Facebook posts.

It's at this point that I am so glad that Ms. Ashley doesn't get her inspiration from Nicholas Sparks, because if that were the case, this story would not have that hoped-for happy ending. There are some tense moments when we wonder if Carrie was not too hasty in sending the good doctor away the year before.  But Ms. Ashley doesn't leave us hanging in suspense too long, thankfully, and everything comes right in the end for a girl who had nothing left to her in the beginning.


Carrie Goes Off The Map is published by Sourcebooks, due out December 1, 2011. I'd love to see  this one into a made for TV movie. Any plans  for that, Phillipa?

The Rose Garden, by Susanna Kearsley

I've always used Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series as the yardstick with which to measure any book containing even a whiff of time travel. Up until Susanna Kearsley's novel,  A Winter Sea (reviewed here  in May, 2011) any and all have fallen short. With The Rose Garden, Ms. Kearsley's newest effort, I think even Ms. Gabaldon has met her match. The Rose Garden is a sumptuous love story, one which encompasses three centuries and will warm the coldest of the coming winter nights. I am not being flowery or overdramatic here. I mean it. It is that good. The writing is so descriptive and the characters so real, I could envision every paragraph of every page as if I were a part of the story too. That to me is the mark of a truly great book.

Eva Ellen Ward has recently lost her older sister Katrina, a celebrated movie actress, to an unnamed disease. Katrina's husband entrusts Eva to take his wife's ashes and spread them "where she was happiest." Eva, who worked public relations for her sister, knows just where that place is, and travels from Los Angeles to Cornwall and specifically to Trelowarth, the house and rose farm where the two girls spent many happy summers as guests of their late "Uncle"George and Claire Hallett, friends of their father's. Twenty years after she last stepped foot in the house she's welcomed back by Claire, as well as George's children Mark (Katrina's first love), and Susan, Eva's former playmate. When she starts to experience what she thinks are hallucinogenic episodes, she chalks it up to sleeping pills and grief over losing her sister. When the episodes become frighteningly real, Eva has to accept the fact that she is indeed straddling a time line that takes her in and out of the Trelowarth of 1715. She meets the then owners of the house, brothers Daniel and Jack Butler,  and their loyal friend Fergal. She is also a witness to the sowing of the seeds of the first Jacobite uprising, the plot to bring King James from France to assume his place on the British throne. What she doesn't anticipate are her feelings for Daniel Butler, who knows exactly what she is and not only accepts it, but returns those same feelings, seemingly tenfold. It is at this point in the novel where Ms. Kearsley infuses Daniel with a romanticism not often found in male protagonists, and allows Daniel to sum up their love with these words, "whatever time we have, will be time enough." Prosaic words for a man who falls in love with a time traveler with no control of her appearances and disappearances, except when she's away from Trelowarth itself.

While the notion of time travel can be a hard sell in a story, Ms. Kearsley makes Eva's experience entirely believable.  It fits so well and flows so naturally here, that this reader did not question it as far-fetched fantasy. I actually caught myself thinking that anything is possible, and who's to say that something like this could not in fact, actually happen? I would make a wager that this reaction is not uncommon when reading this novel. And that's certainly a tribute to Ms. Kearsley's story telling abilities.

Without getting into too much more detail because this is a story best read and savored (and believe me,  you don't want me to give this part away), there is one surprise toward the end of the book that will leave you so enthralled, you'll read it over and over, just to help you work out all the brilliant clues left that you may have missed beforehand. These clues are scattered like breadcrumbs on a trail helping you find your way back from whence you came. It's masterfully done and adds an additional dimension to what was already a brilliant story.

It seems I've gotten into the habit of saying this for this author's work; The Rose Garden, by Susanna Kearsley is a must read. And as they say, there's no time like the present....

Highland Storms, by Christina Courtenay

In the follow up to her novel Trade Winds, Christina Courtenay continues the story of the Kinross family, this time moving her characters from Sweden to their native homeland, the Scottish Highlands. Brice Kinross, son of Killian and Jess, the protagonists in Trade Winds, is bequeathed Rosyth House, the Kinross ancestral home, by his father as a consequence of the Jacobite uprising in 1745.  Living in Sweden with his family, Brice is betrayed in love by his brother and his brother's new wife, the girl he himself intended to marry. When his father suspects that things are not all what they seem at Rosyth, he encourages Brice to go to Scotland, take up the reins of his inheritance and put things to rights. With an eye toward a new beginning, he leaves Sweden and heads "home."

Marsaili Buchanan, Brice's deceased uncle's illegitimate daughter (more simply, his second cousin) acts as housekeeper at Rosyth. Instilled there by Brice's aunt and looked after by her half-sisters, Marsaili continuously butts heads with the estate manager, Colin Seton. He wants Marsaili for a wife, but she refuses him repeatedly. Seton is not what he appears to be, and only his son, Iain knows exactly what he's up to. However, Iain's loyalties are tested repeatedly as he loves Marsaili's half sister. When Brice shows up at Rosyth House and declares himself Laird, he begins to slowly win over his tenants by deed as well as character. At the same time, he makes some very powerful enemies. Faced with the ultimate threat to his plan, Seton begins to plot revenge and this revenge is what keeps the book moving through the final few pages.

On a personal level, Brice must overcome his reluctance to trust in love when he finds himself attracted to his beautiful cousin.  For her part, Marsaili has to make sure Brice's intentions are honorable before she reciprocates those feelings,  as she has a fear of becoming like her mother, a wanton who finally settled into marriage only to allow her husband to physically abuse her. But before this can happen, fate intervenes and puts them both into abject danger.

Set against the backdrop of the aftermath of Culloden and the dismantling of the clan system in the Highlands, Highland Storms evokes all the hardship and desolation faced and felt by the once proud inhabitants of that part of Scotland. Ms. Courtenay writes an engaging and fast moving story. The only problem I have with it is that a good deal of the dialogue and some of the action (for example, the characters, including the women, seem to like to punch each other in the arms a good deal to signify good humor) seemed a bit too contemporary for a novel set in the mid 18th century. It was a bit jarring and somewhat difficult to get past in spots, but I tried my best to put that aside, and once I did, it was easy to get lost in Brice and Marsaili's love story.  Just out now from Choc Lit publishers, Highland Storms is a fast moving, engaging, love trumps all tale definitely worth a read.

Holly Lane, by Toni Blake

It was the perfect marriage. They were the couple who had everything for as long as anyone could remember. But the rock solid marriage of Sue Ann and Jeff, a couple we've come to know in the previous Destiny novels, doesn't survive the first few pages of Holly Lane, Toni Blake's new offering in this incredible series.
     Fast forward six months. It's Thanksgiving weekend and Sue Ann, still struggling with Jeff's abandonment, books a cabin in the woods. A weekend away by herself may be just the thing to help her find some peace. But Sue Ann's attempt at tranquil solitude is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Jeff's best friend, her daughter's godfather and all around town "good guy," Adam Becker. However, Adam is anything but feeling good at the moment. His boys are spending the entire holiday season far away with his ex's family and he's grumpy and miserable - not at all his usual self. And now he's just plain annoyed because the plans for his very own solitary, brooding weekend are over. The lodge booked both of them into the same cabin and the unexpected snow storm forces the two to spend the night together. 

     And let's be clear....they spend the spend the night TOGETHER.  Thank you, Ms. Blake for not making us wait this one out. Friends for a long time, they know each other well and whether it's the coziness of a rustic cabin warmed by a roaring fire or the loneliness and frustration each one is feeling, or perhaps a little of both, within a few short pages we are treated to one of the most sizzling love scenes I've read since...well, since the last Destiny novel.
     The snow eventually stops and as Sue Ann and Adam part company, they decide their brief interlude must be just that - brief and over. However, as connoisseurs of the genre know, nothing is ever that simple and the two spend the rest of the novel unsuccessfully denying the inevitable attraction while trying to overcome their individual issues.  

     Ms. Blake takes a very creative approach and evokes Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, comparing Adam with Ebenezer Scrooge. Frankly, this surprised me. After all, Adam is not a bad person. He's just having a crap holiday season and spending it in a perpetual black mood. Overall, Adam's issues are mild compared to the heavy baggage carried around by some of the previous Destiny heroes. Mick Brody, for one, comes to mind. But the comparison really does work, as Adam, it turns out, is far from perfect himself. Eventually, he realizes the error of his ways (reminiscent of Scrooge) and does several things so wonderful, so impossibly heartwarming, all should be forgiven. 
     But Sue Ann can't seem to forgive Adam, nor can she forget him. Here Ms. Blake shines as she makes Sue Ann's confusion very real. After all, Sue Ann's concern for her daughter is first and foremost and she needs to make sense of her new status as single mother and sole provider. A new relationship is just too much to handle. And who can blame her for not trusting Adam, given his behavior in the context of her ex-husband's betrayal. But it's oh so gratifying to see Sue Ann grow from victim into victor - a woman who begins to take charge of her life by rebuilding it one day at a time and, in the process, finding the courage to embrace love again.

     Holly Lane is the kind of wonderful, complex romance we've come to expect from Ms. Blake. The characters are human, their flaws - open and raw - are mended by love. A perfect read for any time of year, may it find its way into your heart this holiday season.

The Very Picture of You, by Isabel Wolff

At first glance, The Very Picture of You, by Isabel Wolff,  is the story of an artist's way of life. In reality, however, it's so much more. Ella Graham, a talented portrait artist, has quite a few commissions to finish. Each sitting to Ella is like a therapy session. In the course of conversation, her subjects slowly reveal themselves to her until who they truly are is what she portrays them to be. But there's more to this story than meets the eye, or canvas, as it were. The secondary characters in this novel, while at first seemingly unrelated, are in fact, woven together to present a common and recurrent element. Mike, a local politician, Iris, a pleasant elderly woman, Celine, a dissatisfied housewife, Grace, the one posthumous commission Ella takes on, Chloe, Ella's half sister, Sue, her mother, Roy, her step-father and lastly, Nate, Chloe's intended, are wrapped around the central themes of marriage, infidelity, abandonment and forgiveness. And it's written in such a way that you are seeing and feeling everything Ella does until you too, have a complete picture of each character, without ever actually seeing their portrait. It's probably about as fine an example of descriptive writing I have come across in a very long time.

Overarching these stories is Ella, herself a two-time victim of clandestine loves that if revealed, would destroy the relationships her family has worked so hard to build over the years. She's also presented with a life changing decision, a road that if taken could destroy her mother yet turn the page on an old hurt that has colored every part of her life since the age of 5. Will she reach out and grab the opportunities presented to her? Or will she decide that the rewards to be gained from love are not worth the price she will have to pay?

Ella is far from perfect, even though she is an extraordinary artist. She makes a few wild (and it turns out wrong) assumptions along the way. I was surprised actually, at her gullibility in certain situations and her tendency to believe the worst in people without giving them the benefit of the doubt. I soon realized, however, that this trait was important because it revealed a distinct inability to see the two sides that might exist to a story. This turns out to be a crucial factor in her relationship with her mother, the most important relationship Ella has in this novel until the very end of the  book, when the seemingly impossible resolutions to her dilemmas (happily for her) become reality.

Utilizing wonderful secondary characters, each with their own story to tell, including a family that, while not dysfunctional could certainly use some lessons in honesty and communication, Isabel Wolff has written a worthy follow-up to A Vintage Affair, also reviewed here at Bookishly Attentive. On sale in hardcover on October 4, The Very Picture of You is a must-read for anyone looking for a moving family story that paints a beautifully vivid picture with words.

Silk is for Seduction, by Loretta Chase

Let me start out by saying no betrothals were hurt in the writing of this novel. That said, Loretta Chase has written a gem in Silk is for Seduction.  The first in a series about the Noirot sisters (three women with a past that make convicted felons look good) brings together Marcelline Noirot and Gervaise Angier, 7th Duke of Clevedon in an attempt at seduction, but not the kind we are used to in this genre. What Marcelline wants is Clevedon's future wife. Marcelline and her sisters are modistes. Without a following in the upper reaches of the haut ton, they need an in, and the eldest Noirot travels to Paris to attract the Duke so she can literally make a pitch for his future business. The Duke is enjoying the final year of a swing through the Continent and must return to London to marry Lady Clara Fairfax, sister of his best friend, the Earl of Longmore. And it is that lady that Marcelline really has her eyes on.

What ensues seems to be the  typical boy meets girl plot, but with Marcelline's professional reputation at stake, and her unsuitable background to boot, Clevedon meets with a dead end in his quest to have her for his own. She won't give in and he won't give up, even to the detriment of his relationship with Lady Clara and her brother.

While all of this, on the surface, sounds like Marcelline is a home wrecker of the worst kind, nothing could be further from the truth. For while she does fall in love with Clevedon, she strongly encourages him to marry Clara. Neither her motives nor Clevedon's are honorable to begin with, and that's what makes this such a good love story. I've never read a novel where both protagonists are such driven (and in Clevedon's case, selfish) individuals, like-minded in their drive to get what they want, not realizing that what they want is the same thing. It's a brilliant plot and it works to keep the reader guessing up until the very end of the novel.

Sprinkled with small, hysterical one-liners (you'll know one when you read one),  Silk is for Seduction admirably serves its purpose of entertaining the reader and it sets up the next two books in this series perfectly. I can't wait to see how the girls adjust to the outcome of this story and go on to find loves of their own. And I'm wondering if Lady Clara's brother, the Earl of Longmore is somehow, some way involved.  I'll just throw that out there and see if Ms. Chase takes the hint.

Go Small or Go Home, by Heather Wardell

Go Small or Go Home, by Heather Wardell is currently a .99 Kindle download. To be honest, I never hold out much hope for .99 Kindle downloads. They are often either too short, too simple or too silly. In fact, I can count on my hand the number I thought worthy of even that small expenditure. But oh, what an absolutely brilliant bargain Go Small or Go Home is. Packed with some of the most wonderful dialogue I’ve read in quite awhile (which probably means I haven't read enough of Ms. Wardell's work) it challenges the old adage that you get only what you pay for.

Forrest Williams has finally fulfilled a life long dream by playing ice hockey for the Toronto Hogs, but playing is not what anyone would call it. Emotionally paralyzed by a horrific car accident that claimed the life of his fiancée, Forrest is ostracized by his teammates as a minor physical injury keeps him glued to the bench.  Survivor’s guilt shapes his actions and because of it, he’s on the fast track to an early retirement. But the pressure of a multimillion-dollar contract and the club owner’s wrath forces him to hire a private massage therapist in the hope of regaining his physical health. But no matter how much he wants to get back out there and play, his personal baggage is just too heavy to carry onto the ice.   

Tess Grayson is torn between a successful career as a massage therapist and her passion for making miniature pieces of three-dimensional art.  She would like nothing more than to turn that passion into a full time career and say goodbye to massage therapy forever. But a girl’s got to eat and Tess applies for the temporary stint as Forrest’s savior.  She immediately recognizes that his problems are centered more in his head and less in his leg and, in the same manner she does everything, applies herself whole-heartedly to healing him. But she soon realizes she’s in danger of losing that heart to a man who apparently has nothing left to give.

Written in Tess’ voice, the narrative shines with insightful humor and touching sadness. Tess struggles to find herself at the same time she fights Forrest’s demons and the emotional toll these battles take on her is staggering. Every page in this book packs a punch and I found myself immediately lost in Tess' world. Of course, Forrest’s thoughts are closed to the reader, just as they are closed to Tess. Only once does he open up enough to let her (and us) in, and the price of admission would destroy a woman weaker than Tess. But despite Forrest's hot and cold temperament, she continues to root for him and for herself, and I found myself squarely behind her, although holding out less and less hope for him. 

The supporting characters are wonderful in their own right, particularly Tess’ best friend Jen and Forrest’s gallery owning mother, Jayne.  Magnus, the Hog’s team captain earned my eternal admiration and even Tess’ alcoholic twin sister Pam gained my support in the end.

I loved everything about this book, including the ending. Especially the ending.  Don’t hesitate to spend the buck, if you’re lucky enough to get it for that price. But, even at ten times the price, it would still be a bargain. Trust me on this.