A romantic meditation on faith, redemption and public service.
Love blooms for a young American woman and an expatriate doctor during a Peruvian jungle expedition.
Jilted at the altar, timid dental hygienist Christine is strong-armed into a two-week Peruvian humanitarian trip by her adventurous best friend Jessica, who reasons that Christine will get over heartbreak only by giving of herself. Once she arrives at the tiny Cusco orphanage El Girasol, whose name means “sunflower” in Spanish, Christine is absorbed in work and discovers the problems and deprivations of the developing world. She befriends a deaf girl abandoned by her parents, and grows closer to the mysterious proprietor Paul. Himself the victim of heartbreak, Paul had left behind a promising medical career in America. He ends up guiding Christine’s group through the jungle to an eco-lodge, where he helps his fragile lady friend overcome her fear of spiders and teaches her to “hunt” crocodiles. And when Christine comes down with a tropical fever, Paul uses his medical skills to save the woman he has already fallen in love with. After her recovery, Christine is forced to choose between love and the safety of her former life—the prospect is much scarier than spiders. This wholesome story from Evans (A Perfect Day, 2003, etc.) boasts an amazing setting but less successful are the preachy diary entries from Paul that contradict his laconic man-of-action persona. There is also a secondary plot involving child-sex trafficking that feels undeveloped.
A romantic meditation on faith, redemption and public service.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-8701-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
Romance winner from veteran Garwood (Prince Charming, 1994, etc.) with another entry in her string of Montana historicals. Back east in the New York City of 1860, four homeless boysAdam, Douglas, Travis, and Colefind baby Mary Rose abandoned in an alley's trash and form a family to protect her. Wise and noble Adamthe oldest at almost 14, a runaway slave who killed his drunken, wife-beating owneris elected head of the gang as the four decide to take themselves and their charge to Montana, where folks don't ask a lot of questions. The Lord is good to the little brood. They build a simple but lovely two-story house, designed by brother Cole, the gun-totin' hothead with the heart of gold; they start a livestock business (Douglas is a whiz with animals); they teach themselves French, learning a new word each day; and they study the religions of the world. Adam also teaches little Mary Rose to play the piano, and the whole crew does well enough to send her to boarding school in St. Louis. There, she's spotted by an acquaintance of one Lord Elliott, whose daughter was kidnapped 19 years earlier in New York City. And so handsome Scottish lawyer Harrison MacDonald, Earl of Stanford, comes to Blue Belle, Montana, to see whether the outspoken but good-hearted Mary Rose is really long-lost Lady Victoria. He stays to fall in love with her and the whole Montana Territory, as well as to defend Adam against murder charges, then to bring his new wife back to England to meet her dad. The Victorian lifestyle proves too much for Mary Rose's free Western spirit, however, and she returns to her brothers, with Harrison sailing right behind.... Sugary page-turner filled with lots of family values and some fairly explicit sex between married lovers. The heroine is always protected by big, paternal fellas—and the reader is never out of Garwood's skillful comfort zone. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-87097-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
British novelist Hylton's 14th output (Shadow of the Nile, 1994, etc.) is light on history and heavy on histrionics as its insipid heroine weathers the horrors of WW II with a decided lack of common sense. Shy Joanna Albemarle is the only child of a passive-aggressive mother (with whose parents the family lives) and a weak-willed father who works for the British government. The girl's life will change overnight, however, when her maternal grandmother dies, her grandfather quickly remarries, and her father's job forces her parents to relocate to Singapore. Joanna is sent to live at Reckmireher father's parents' home on the coast. There, her cousins, the boyish Robin and the half-Italian Gabriella (along with Paul Cheviot, Robin's mysterious friend), make lasting impressions on the sheltered Joanna. Later, after her parents decide to divorce, her father returns from the Far East to take Joanna to Italy to visit Gabriella's family. The trip proves to be the last time Joanna sees her father alive; it is also when she becomes enamored of Carlo, to whom Gabriella is practically engaged. Enter the war: Joanna's father is taken captive, then killed; then, largely to escape her bitter mother, Joanna joins the Wrens and moves to London, where she has a brief but life-altering affair with Robin, who is also killed during the war. When her grandparents die and bequeath Reckmire to Joanna, Paul reappears in her life. Mistakenly assuming that Paul loves her and not just Reckmire, she marries him and signs over half of the manor, and for years remains locked in a loveless marriage. By the close, though, Joanna will find bittersweet happiness and say goodbye to Reckmireher greatest blessing and her greatest curseforever. Fast-moving, but with a hollow ring throughout.
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13595-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
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