For
Every Season by Frankie J. Jones,
Love on the Line by Laura Dehart Young,
and The Iron Girl by Ellen Hart
Love on the Line by Laura Dehart Young,
and The Iron Girl by Ellen Hart
  For
Every
SeasonBy Frankie J. Jones Bella Books ISBN: 1-59493-101-4 Paperback $12.95 234 pages For Every Season introduces Andrea “Andi” Kane, a thirty-four year-old project manager living in Dallas, Texas. Life certainly is not proceeding as she had planned. Andi is enduring an unsatisfying nine-month relationship with Trish, a control freak extraordinaire and high-powered realtor. Their life together has become nothing more than mind-numbing routine. One morning as Andi hears Trish scrape her chair across the kitchen hardwood floor, Andi knows it must be seven-thirty. “I may not have a lover, but I have the best alarm clock in the city” (p. 4). As her luck would have it, when Andi arrives at work, she is told she has been let go due to budget constraints. Holding only a box containing her possessions, she is unceremoniously escorted by security out of the building. Several minutes later her friend Becka joins her on the sidewalk; she too is holding a box. The two women drive to Becka’s home and quickly proceed to drown their troubles in alcohol. When Stacy, Becka’s partner, arrives home, she drives Andi back to her house. When Trish realizes Andi is intoxicated, she refuses to hear any kind of explanation and throws her out of the house. Soon after, Andi decides to leave Dallas and go home to San Antonio to re-assess her situation. While staying at her parents’ home, her grandmother, Sarah, asks a favor of her—to look into a family tragedy which took place sixty-five years earlier. Having nothing better to do and not wanting to disappoint her grandmother, Andi heads down to HiHo, a small town south of San Antonio, to investigate this dark period from the very distant past. Jones has written several good romance novels, Rhythm Tide and Midas Touch to name but two. However, For Every Season surpasses these past efforts in two very important respects. First, the characterization is outstanding in its depiction of both the lead and secondary characters. These characters are rich in detail, depth, and realism. Andi is a woman with whom the reader can readily identify and empathize. Andi is affable, humorous, and deeply rooted in the concept of family. Love, loyalty, and respect for her grandmother compel Andi to undertake a quest for the truth, regardless of where that journey may lead. The reader is provided with generous back-story through the use of flashbacks and expository narrative. Yet, Jones manages to always show, not tell. The actions in this novel are primarily interpersonal which allow for fuller threads of character development. Leticia, Andi’s mother, is a meticulously drawn character whose actions and motivations are explained through a series of genuinely engrossing and sometimes heartbreaking vignettes of her childhood in HiHo. Jones’ second main character is Janice Reed, the District Attorney in HiHo. Here the reader meets a refreshingly intriguing and fascinating woman. When Andi brings her concerns to Janice, Janice tells her to expect a 99.9% chance of failure, but nonetheless she still offers to help Andi in any way she can. When asked why Janice would still help given those odds, Janice responds, “Because I have a hunch about you and I always play my hunches” (p. 95). This somewhat cryptic response serves not only to embarrass Andi but also to give her an intuitive sense of some kind of possible connection to Janice. As the storyline progresses, Janice is conflicted in a variety of ways. However, the deft writing always maintains her credibility. The reader is able to peel away the layers and, thus, is permitted to see within the core of this hard-working attorney. The mercurial sexual tension is captivating as both Janice and Andi struggle with outside forces which inevitably will affect them and those closest to them. For Every Season is a skillfully written and highly entertaining look at the past and the present of two very different families. The events of so long ago have indeed cast ripples into the lives of all concerned. From the humorously drawn portrayal of Trish, the Ice Woman, to the painfully stated mother-daughter contentions of three generations, to the surprising revelations of love and misunderstanding, Jones has created a multi-faceted and page-turning story that this reader will long remember. For this reviewer it is always an even more rewarding reading experience to see how an author continues to stretch and to grow. Enhanced writing style, amplified narrative technique, and intensified characterization are expertly evidenced here. For Every Season may very well indicate a new level of writing craft for Frankie J. Jones, and this reviewer eagerly awaits her next novel. Reviewed by Arlene Germain |
 Love
on
the LineBy Laura Dehart Young Bella Books ISBN: 1-59493-008-2 Paperback $12.95 167 pages Love on the Line This novel is a classic reprint of the first book in Laura DeHart Young’s Alaska series. Kay Westmore is a thirty-eight year-old National Park Service ranger stationed in Fairbanks. She and her colleague Russell Bend have been given the assignment to inspect the Alaska pipeline for possible structural defects. Along for the trip is a Washington bureaucrat named Grace Perry. It is obvious to Kay that Grace has her own agenda; she has her eye on becoming the next Secretary of the Interior, and this will probably occur if Grace is able to discredit the frontrunner for the position. From the start there is an adversarial relationship between these two women and many disagreements develop. However, Kay must perform her job. Embarking upon this assignment at one of the worst possible times of the year, November, when the physical conditions are virtually impossible to combat, the group heads north to complete its inspection task. Compounding Kay’s frustrating professional problems are two women: Barb, a psycho ex-lover, and Stef Kramer, an enamored twenty-two year-old, to whom Kay is inexplicably drawn. As Kay’s life becomes increasingly more complicated, it also becomes more apparent to Kay that her very life may well rest upon the completion of her dubious assignment. Young writes in very succinct unencumbered prose. The sentence structure is not very demanding which moves along the action in the plot, but at the same time, it becomes a bit repetitive and predictable. This reader’s interest sometimes wandered. However, when Young is recounting events using the flashback device, the pace quickens, the diction becomes more complex, and these scenes completely captivate the reader. These brief snapshots of life-altering moments in Kay’s life expand the story’s characterization. The reader has a deeper understanding of her family dynamic and dysfunction. Sometimes a less adept writer can abuse the flashback technique, and that only serves to intrude upon, if not interrupt, the flow and pacing. Young prevents this from occurring by seamlessly segueing into each flashback and then effortlessly returning to the present. The reader actually looks forward to there being subsequent flashbacks as these mini-stories help foreshadow the personal dilemmas that Kay must overcome, or at least, try to overcome. The secondary characters are a diverse group of individuals. Barb sometimes borders on the stereotypical. However, the ex-lover from Hell theme is so stereotypical that this reader can easily overlook the use of that element here. There is also a sad and rather melancholy understanding of a relationship’s erosion. Kay attempts to find a reason for her failure with Barb, and it comes down to one statement. ”She had somehow come to be lost in an existence of Barb's choosing” (p. 7). Stef is an energetic and spontaneous young woman who lacks the real life experiences that influence Kay’s decisions regarding personal relationships, inconsequential flings, and shutting the door on the past. Young also creates an aura of enigmatic professional and sexual assurance in the character of Grace that keeps the reader wondering if she might indeed be a match for Kay. Russell is Kay’s best friend as well as her colleague, and it is striking to see that their relationship of respect and trust is uppermost in Russell’s mind. He is such a startling contrast to the male police detective that she encounters as the story unfolds. Love on the Line is short at one hundred and sixty-seven pages, but it is an entertaining novel which explores the Alaskan wilderness and Kay Westmore’s attempts to deal with her past and discover her future. Young’s book is an enjoyable way to spend a few hours, and it will definitely spark the reader’s appetite for the remaining books in the series, Forever and the Night and Love Speaks Her Name. Reviewed by Arlene Germain |
 The
Iron
GirlBy Ellen Hart St. Martin’s Minotaur ISBN: 0-312-31749-2 Hardcover $24.95 352 pages The Iron Girl is Ellen Hart’s thirteenth novel in her Jane Lawless mystery series. In this latest entry, Jane is finally ready to move forward with her life after years spent mourning the loss of her lover, real estate agent Christine Kane. As she scrutinizes Christine’s belongings for the last time, Jane discovers in a briefcase a loaded derringer pistol with a carved ivory grip. Initially, she is shocked to find a weapon among Christine’s business effects. However, as Jane reflects upon those final weeks just prior to Christine’s death, she remembers that Christine’s client at the time was the Simoneau family, and more importantly, Jane vividly recalls the infamous murder case which involved this rich and powerful Minnesota family. Could Christine have been connected in some way to this gruesome event? Despite Jane’s desire to expand her restaurant business by investing in a new venture, the Xanadu Club, and to pursue a new long-distance relationship with college professor Kenzie Mullroy, Jane “…knew in her gut that this was exactly the wrong direction to take, the wrong time to get sucked back into her dead partner’s past, and yet she knew the gun represented a larger mystery she would feel compelled to unravel, wherever it might lead” (p.17-18). Add to the mix the bizarre appearance of the mysterious Greta Hoffman who bears an uncanny and eerie resemblance to Christine, and the always amusing shenanigans of Jane’s best friend Cordelia Thorn, and the reader is led into a fictional yet credible world of fidelity, betrayal, devotion, duplicity, and suspense—all of which make for an enthralling and intriguing mystery reading experience. A common literary element often misused by too many authors is the flashback. There is a fine line between the hokey contrived insertion of past events and the clever craftily-written extension and expansion of the plotline. Hart achieves the latter with distinction. The way Hart’s narrative seamlessly flows from past to present over the course of the novel serves the reader well. Hart presents two storylines that, at first glance, seem independent of one another, yet end up neatly tied together through the adroit and imaginative writing of mood, tone, and the precise incorporation of sensory words. The author’s word choice is fluent, exact, and rhythmic. “As the room lost its solidity, Christine continued to stare into Jane’s eyes. The deeper she looked, the clearer it became that they contained worlds within worlds, all connected” (p. 333). The reader comprehends the complexities and convolutions of the plot and the nuances of the characters by Hart’s synergy of tightly composed sentences, vivid imagery, multi-layered meaning, and wry humor. The sardonic humor of best friend Cordelia is also showcased with crisply ironic dialogue. At one point Cordelia and Jane drive to a section of Minneapolis to meet with a former employee of the Simoneau family. Cordelia explains, “Ah. The burbs, where the air is fresher, the grass is greener, the minds narrower” (p. 185). In Hart’s previous award-winning novel, An Intimate Ghost, Jane Lawless had begun to make specific life changes: letting go of the past, connecting with new people, and trying to experience her life with a new-found understanding and appreciation. The Iron Girl continues this development of attempting to come full circle by recognizing both the personal strengths and weaknesses, and at times, the foibles, of those one has loved and sadly lost. Throughout Jane’s investigation, Hart manages to capture that discernment and perceptivity that only the inevitable passage of time can afford. Jane must delve into a component of Christine’s life that, for better or worse, Christine chose to keep shrouded during their time together. The reader is subtly and skillfully asked that enigmatic question. How well do we really know the people we love? The incisive characterization of Christine Kane and the development of the emotional backstory are hallmarks of this novel. The reader sees Christine from her own anguished perspective. The motivations for her actions are clearly delineated, and while one may question some of her decisions, Hart capably explains the rationale for Christine’s behavior. At one point she succinctly explains it to Jane. “It was selfishness, Jane. Pure and simple. I admit it” (p. 275). The reader is given a more profound understanding of the dynamics of their relationship and the catalysts for its ostensible deterioration. The Iron Girl is an exemplary model for the skillfully written mystery genre novel. Hart manages to create suspense without relying upon heavy-handed or gratuitously violent scenes. In much the same way as Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayres before her, Hart presents the subtlety of human malevolence and the banality of the deceitful. The Iron Girl is an absorbing and captivating reading experience. Hart’s dual storyline, adroit narrative technique, clever pacing, and entertaining characters all contribute to a superlative novel that the reader will treasure. Reviewed by Arlene Germain |