Thursday Thirteen - 50 - 13 Reasons to Read Heart of My Heart by Stella MacLean

I had the wonderful surprise of winning a copy of Heart of My Heart at my writers' meeting last Sunday. Since this debut novel is an April 2008 release, it will be gobbled up while it's on the shelves this month. Stay tuned next week for my review of Christine d'Abo's The Bond That Ties Us. Ms. d'Abo's book is currently available at Ellora's Cave.

Today I'd like to treat you to my review for a very special debut novel by a very special debut author.

1 - Heart of My Heart is an Everlasting Love imprint from Harlequin Super Romance, released on April 8th. Stella is part of my RWA chapter, and a debut novel from one of my sistahs is a major deal.

2 - Stella MacLean was a member of RWA when I joined, and as I got to know her and listened to her writing workshops over the past five years, she shared with us her unparalled determination in the face of that elusive first sale. She held workshops on keeping one's spirit up, or keeping it fresh when one's writing voice seemed tired and uninspired. At one of the writers' retreats, she shared her writing history with us. To say that Stella's experiences have inspired me is truly putting it mildly.

3 - Heart of My Heart offers a longer-range romance following one couple through several decades. 'Discover how love is truly the adventure of a lifetime,' writes Harlequin about its Everlasting Love category. 'Because happily ever after is just the beginning...'

This is a big draw for me, as I love living through all the bumps in the road with a couple. In a traditional romance, there can only be so many bumps because by its nature, a romance shows us the start of a relationship. Everlasting Love books show the more complicated emotions that happen between a couple as they mature into the 'everlasting' part of the equation.

4 - We meet Olivia Banks, a high school senior in the 1960's who plays basketball and has won the first full scholarship awarded to a female student for the marketing program at Hastings College. She's in love with the son of her father's employer and hasn't quite grasped how much their social inequity will shortly impact her life.

5 - James McElroy is called suddenly to meet with his father, though it's the night of the prom and Olivia is waiting for him. James' father is cruel and unyielding. He refuses to watch his son marry beneath him and physically forces James to bend to his will.

6 - The core of this novel revolves around the willingness to believe in one's own feelings. The adults in the hero's and heroine's lives play on the 'wisdom' that young high school kids can't possibly know what's best for them. And Olivia and James themselves try to convince their own broken hearts to mend over the years - but without any success.

7 - I really, really love the flashback aspects of this story. As I've mentioned before, if this were a straight contemporary romance following the very same couple, I wouldn't find it as fascinating as when we get to skip back and forth through time. One scene shows Olivia and James as heavily smitten teenagers, one scene shows Olivia as a 20-something mother trying to make it work with a man who is not her beloved. The different facets of the characters' growth over the years is very well-handled. They don't simply change hairstyles with the fashions - they realize things about themselves, they grow.

8 - There's an absolute ton of sexual tension between Olivia and James. Whenever they're in a room together, I'm feeling it! This is a sweet romance, the high level of longing and uncertainty between the hero and heroine driving the story.

9 - Olivia's and James' most crushing differences come from their families' economic backgrounds. From a compatibility standpoint, this couple underestimates the power this will have over them. And I'm a sucker for class-difference romances.

10 - MacLean really knows how to end each chapter with an emotional hook. Like this, for example, a scene between Olivia and the man she married instead of James:

" 'But Alex, this is our life and my child-' Olivia heard her words, and flushed at the realization of what she'd said.

'You mean our child, don't you?' Alex countered, his voice tinged with recrimination.

'Yes, of course I do,' she said too quickly.

'Olivia, I'm Kyle's father in every way that matters,' he whispered, peeking over his shoulder to see where Sarah was.

'Of course you are, and I want us to be a family,' she whispered back.

There was silence between them as Olivia stared up at Alex. How could she have said something so stupid and insensitive?

'I didn't mean to make it sound like you weren't.' She reached for him, her hands clutching the smooth cotton of his shirt.

He nodded and his fingers folded over hers. 'Kyle is our son. My mother loves Kyle, and she wants to be part of his life. I agree that makes things difficult for us at times, but -'

'I realize she loves Kyle,' Olivia broke in, 'but I wish it was just you, me and Kyle.'

'Give Mom time to adjust...'

'She's had over a year, for heaven's sake!'

'She's alone. She has no one but us,' he answered.

Olivia hated to be ungenerous, but her mother-in-law's involvement in their lives was becoming intolerable. And there was nothing she could do about it."

11 - MacLean's secondary characters hold significant sway over the plot dynamics. I could never really guess how Olivia's husband Alex would react to things, nor Olivia's school friend Grace. And yet their reactions made all the difference to Olivia and James.

12 - The thing that I like most about this book is the way we meet the hero and heroine. Any longtime couple will see the inner person every time they look into each other's eyes. Readers can carry the teenage lovers forward into every scene, just the way Olivia and James do. Yet we've been there for all the growing and changing, so the later scenes have layers to them.

13 - I leave you with an excerpt. Enjoy!

" 'When did you get married?'he asked suddenly.

'October, 1967.'

'That same year?' he asked, his voice flat with disbelief.

She nodded, but didn't meet his eyes.

She'd married just four months after he'd left. 'And all that time, I thought you were willing to wait for me,' he said bleakly.

'I couldn't.'

'Or wouldn't,' he countered, all hope draining from him. 'So you were already married when I sent you the airline ticket.'

She nodded.

'Why didn't you tell me back then?'

'I couldn't.'

'Why not?'

She didn't reply.

If Olivia had waited, if she'd been willing to believe and trust in him, in their lives together... 'Would you leave your life behind for me now?'

He saw the truth in her eyes.

Tears soaked her eyelashes as Olivia continued to stare at him. 'Oh James, why didn't you call me or try to contact me when you got to Ireland? I called your house and they told me you'd left. I felt completely abandoned by you. I survived that and now you want me to pick up and leave the life I've made for myself.'

Seeing the sorrow in her eyes, James faced the fact that he was making a fool of himself by being here. 'Olivia, I've never wanted anyone but you, and I never will.'

'That was true years ago, James,' she said with finality.

But it hadn't changed anything for them. Was that what she was trying to tell him? 'You're right. I have no business asking you to leave your life behind for me.'

Her cheeks damp with tears, Olivia murmured, 'I'd give anything if we could go back, start over.'

He breathed in her scent, clinging to the moment. 'But we can't, can we?'

***

From the moment she told him when she got married, everything had changed. The anger and betrayal she saw in his eyes was unfair and undeserved, but she wouldn't defend herself to him.

Back then, she'd had no choice but to protect Kyle from the shame of illegitimacy, and she'd protect him again.

Her heart ached to tell James about his son, but telling him was out of the question now.

The trust between them was damaged beyond repair. Telling James about Kyle wouldn't change anything...except Kyle's life.

And Alex's."

- Stella MacLean, 2008


Stay tuned to the next three Thursday Thirteens - following next week's review of Christine d'Abo's debut ebook from July 2007, I'll be reviewing ebooks by Red Garnier and Lillian Feisty.

Wordless Wednesday - 43

Poetry Train Monday - 44 - The Supplicant

Since I've currently got my mind wrapped around the story for the screenplay I'm working on, here's another backstory poem. This time we meet Kate, the mother of last week's poetry narrator.

It's the 1830's in northern New Brunswick. Kate was widowed at 23 when her husband, a stevedore, was crushed beneath a crate of textiles being offloaded from a merchant ship. She had a five-year-old son, so she remarried to ensure a home, food and clothing for him. She had no idea the man who took her for a wife could be so hard on her son.

In the twelve years they've been married, she has never grown heavy with child. Each year with no offspring of his own, her new husband is more and more cruel to her son. She spends all her energy stepping between the two of them before violence erupts, but she's not always successful.










The Supplicant


I call on Mother Mary
I call on her grace
She cried, did she not
As she gazed on His face?

I call the Holy Spirit
I call for Your strength
In the silence between blows
He hands out at length

I call on my son
I call him - beware
His mood's dark today
The fury gleams there

I call on my knees
I call with head bowed
In the distance I hear it
My son cries aloud

I call to be spared
I call without hope
Wish my rosary was not
Beads but a rope


Copyright - Julia Smith - 2008

Nim's Island

After a really hard week (migraine - what's new?) the only thing that got me through today was the knowledge that I would be seeing Gerry. Sigh.


"Eleven-year-old Nim (Abigail Breslin) and her marine biologist father, Jack (Gerard Butler), are the only human residents of a remote but idyllic South Pacific island.


While Jack studies nanoplankton, Nim makes the entire island her school, with the animals as her teachers and her friends. Every few months, a supply boat brings another book by her favourite author, Alex Rover, an international man of adventure.




But Alex is really Alexandra (Jodie Foster), a writer so terrified of just about everything that she lives on canned soup, constantly sanitizes her hands, and cannot get far enough outside her front door to retrieve the mail." - Nell Minow, Chicago Sun-Times

"A tomboyish young girl, Nim has playmates Selkie the sea lion, Fred the bearded dragon and Galileo the pelican, while her literary hero is Alex Rover, the lionhearted star of adventure novels. Scottish hunk Gerard Butler plays the dual role of Nim's father and the intrepid Alex Rover, an Indiana Jones with a heartier laugh, who appears to writer Alexandra (Jodie Foster) and haunts Nim's imagination. Butler rolls through both roles by channeling an overdeveloped sense of macho into slightly different versions of the same man." - Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter


"Be the hero of your own life story" is the advice the fictional Alex Rover gives writer Alexandra as she struggles with her agorophobia. As a writer myself - who is basing my own fictional character on Gerard Butler - all of the scenes between Alexandra and her character really struck a weird chord. Trust me. It's one thing to carry on in my own mind - it's quite another to see and hear the very man who plays my vampire character talking to the writer who creates him in the film.

Add to that Jodie Foster - one of my husband's favorite actors - playing an agorophobic person, a huge problem my husband struggles with daily - and the weirdness just kept getting weirder. But I mean that in a good way. Basically, this movie seemed to gather a lot of things that are personal to me, and allow me to watch them on the big screen.


And the two Gerry's made the long, long, painful week disappear in a gorgeous instant. Sigh.

Scroll down for Thursday Thirteen - I'm Guest Blogging at missmakeamovie

Drop on by for some Bill C-10 thoughts at missmakeamovie.

Thursday Thirteen - 49 - 13 Reasons to Read Love Me Wild by Renee Field

Continuing with my e-book review series of T13's, today I'm showcasing Renee Field, a fellow writer from my chapter of Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada.

1 - Love Me Wild is an e-book from Ellora's Cave, released last year and a 2008 Finalist in the EPPIE Awards Erotic Romance, Fantasy/Paranormal category. As if that wasn't exciting enough, Renee won the 2008 Fantasy/Paranormal EPPIE for Rapture!

2 - I won an ARC of this book at a chapter meeting and was so excited to discover Renee's writing voice. We have nine published authors in our chapter, and it's really amazing to open the pages of a book written by someone I've sat next to many times at our pre-meeting lunches. It's always a magnificent experience to be welcomed into my fellow writers' worlds. And Renee's world is immediately tangible, sweeping and big enough to carry more than this single story.

3 - Love Me Wild is part of the Ellora's Cave Shape-shifter category. The hero Tulon shifts between human form and horse form. In fact, he was banished from his clan for his inability to shift into centaur form.

4 - We meet Rowena, royal daughter of the Ruler of the Supreme High Fertility Council for the Maida people. Her work as a biologist leaves Rowena unable to dispute the test tube results that mark her with the Maida curse - fertility.

5 - Tulon is a captured slave, banished from his Dark Forest clan, now held by women for one purpose only. He must fulfill the lust-fueled needs of the fertile woman if chosen as a partner. The guards fail to mention that the fertile men, once joined with the woman suffering the Maida curse, never live past a second day.

6 - Tulon is like no other man Rowena has ever seen. She has no idea that this man's bearing and spirit hold the stallion that lives inside him. Until he sways her with his belief that freedom is possible for both of them.

7 - Love Me Wild is a very hot erotic novella. As with all stories in this genre, the sizzling scenes between the hero and heroine do more than simply turn up the heat. Each scene pushes the two characters closer to their breakthrough resolution moments. And Renee Field's scenes really shine in bringing Tulon to a future he never dreamed possible.

8 - The novella length keeps the plot moving, yet Ms. Field's Maida world is so solid, I couldn't help wishing it was a full-length novel. A society that poisoned itself into infertility, surrounded by a Dark Forest, impenetrable and still holding magic within its boundaries - I could stay in this world for awhile. Luckily, she's got a sequel to this story which follows Rowena's sister. Love Me Tender also features a secondary character from Love Me Wild, a Mage Pegcentaur who aids Tulon and Rowena's bid for freedom.

9 - The fertility aspect of the story really propels the character of Rowena and shapes the females of her world. Rather than rejoice because of her fertility, Rowena only feels trapped by the burden of being robbed of any other life choice. And for a woman who defined herself as a scientist, the prospect of losing herself to unbridled passion makes her recoil. Until she has four slaves presented to her. And Tulon is one of them.

10 - Ms. Field really knows how to end each chapter with a hook. Like this, for example:

" 'Let's sweeten the bargain. Whoever can get the woman to climax three times by the cresting of the dawning sun claims her and gets safe passage out of here. Is that clear?'

'As you wish,' taunted Zickal.

Tulon would have liked nothing better than to knock the so-called Prince of the Forest on his ass. Instead, he reached up to clasp Zickal in the traditional warrior greeting to seal their bargain.

Stepping away from Zickal, Tulon didn't like the gleam in his eye. Before he could ponder anything further, his nemesis flashed away to who knew where. Tulon growled in frustration. So be it. Let the chase begin."


11 - Ms. Field has strong POV voices for her hero and heroine. Rowena is more comfortable with her intellect, but her feminine side reveals itself from the opening pages. When the story switches to Tulon, his masculine voice is undeniable. I'm always attracted to well-crafted male characters, and Tulon pulls the reader into his POV from the moment we meet him in captivity.

12 - The history of the Maida people, Tulon's clan and other beings encountered in the Dark Forest are so rich I could while away many an hour inventing my own episodes in the world Ms. Field created. To me, that's the mark of an exceptional writer.

13 - I leave you with an excerpt. Enjoy!

"When the petite woman knelt in front of him, he fought the urge to lean down and pick her up. Realizing this must be part of their barbaric ceremony, he stood straighter.

'I take thee 7653 to be my mate...your seed to my seed...let life quicken within me.'

The words were barely audible as she mumbled them. An electric shock rippled through his body when she lightly kissed each of his toes. He could have stumbled back from that intimacy, but he forced the creature he was to endure. Sadly, he liked it too much.

That's it! He was then hauled away. No questions asked. No answers. Once in the hall, the fair-haired one who had stood next to him sneered at him.

'Lucky bastard. Enjoy the rut of your life,' he said, as he was whisked away.

When the other two fair-haired men were taken to a different hall and he was left alone with only one female guard watching him, he thought about running.

But to where? He had no idea where he was. He had been blindfolded for the entire journey to this place. Once here, he had been bathed, his body hennaed and then ushered into the lineup. Breaking his code of silence, he asked the guard, 'What was all that about?'

He noticed her pupils dilate in sexual awareness. He mentally cursed himself. How I hate what my voice does to the women of this place. He wanted to shake sense into her. For once in his life, he wanted a straight answer.

He turned, as a voice behind him spoke, fully aware of who stood there - the mother.

'Pleasure my daughter well. Do your job. Nothing more. Do you hear me?' she stated, not expecting him to answer as she strode past him.

Pleasure her daughter well. It took a moment for that notion to be fully digested by him. So that's what I was chosen for. Bed sport!"

- Renee Field, 2007

Check in next week for a review of Christine d'Abo's book, The Bond That Ties Us. I'll feature Red Garnier's Bona Fide Liar next, followed by Lillian Feisty's Dance of the Plain Jane in the Seasons of Seduction I anthology.

Wordless Wednesday - 42