Romance A Case For Love By Kaye Dacus Barbour Publishing, $10.97, 320 pages In this third installment of the Brides of Bonneterre series, Alaine Delacroix, a television reporter for a noontime news-magazine, cannot break into the big time no matter how hard she works. When her family’s home and business are threatened by Boudreaux-Guidry Enterprises, she must tread carefully between her familial obligations and her professional objectivity. Between her friendship with daughter Meredith Guidry and her burgeoning attraction to eldest son Forbes Guidry, it’s easier said than done. Although advertised as a David vs. Goliath struggle between Alaine and the large mega-corporation, A Case for Love centers on the theme of “letting go and letting God.” Attorney Forbes Guidry is a control freak through and through. Used to managing his own life as well as the lives of his siblings, parents, clients, and even the groups at church, Forbes is at a loss when his involvement with Alaine risks both his job and his relationship with his powerful parents. Forbes soon learns he can’t control everything— including his feelings for his new client and his frustration with his parents and siblings’ choices. Focused on the redemptive powers of letting go, A Case for Love explores the difference between doing what is easy and doing what is right. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley Slow Heat By Jill Shalvis Berkley, $7.99, 336 pages Wade O’Reily, a catcher for the Santa Barbara Heat, a Southern California professional baseball expansion team, has gotten himself into a pickle with his playboy ways. When a paternity suit comes to the attention of the front office, they order Wade to clean up his act. In steps team publicist Samantha McNead to the rescue. She sets herself up to serve as a decoy girlfriend in hopes to lure the paparazzi and management into believing Wade has turned his act around. Although Samantha and Wade are supposed to be having a “fake” relationship, they can’t keep their hands off each other. In a women’s bathroom, on the beach, in a car, on a couch, in the shower-the romance between the two is red-hot.
16 March 10
Libraries Blossom Amid Bad Economy By Meredith Greene Although positioned as a light-hearted, contemporary romance perfect for the beach, Jill Shalvis has stepped up to the plate and created two richly, deep characters who face real life conflict. Readers can’t help but to feel for Samantha, trying to hold her own in a family of power-hungry barracudas, or Wade, who was raised by a single, alcoholic, absent father. Slow Heat is touching, funny, and poignant: pure romantic fiction at its best. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley Naked Dragon: A Works Like Magick Novel By Annette Blair Berkley Sensation, $7.99, 336 pages Centuries ago, Bastian Dragonelli was a Roman warrior. Cursed by Killian, Sorceress of Chaos, Bastian and his legion were turned into dragons and sent to the Island of the Stars. First of his legion to be returned to Earth, he must seek his heart mate and make her quest his own. If successful, his brothers will also be saved and returned. McKenna Greylock needs a handyman to help turn her family’s run-down Victorian into a bed and breakfast so she doesn’t lose her home. Who better than the newly human Bastian to help her save her family home and defeat the evil land developer Elliot Huntley? “On the Island of Stars, on a plane beyond ours, a Roman legion exists. Cursed for performing their duty with spirit and might … One dragon per phase might be turned and sent back.” With whimsical and delightful supporting characters both magical (a teacup fairy named Dewcup and a tiny guardian dragon) and non-magical (family friends, newly handicapped Steve, a very pregnant Lizzie and their three delightfully scampish children), Naked Dragon is pure fun. Containing everything a fan of paranormal romance could wish for--dragons, goofy faeries, treasure, love, and most important, good conquering evil--Annette Blair has crafted an original and entertaining tale of love and redemption. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley
Americans seem to feel renewed interest in literature in the presence of want. Libraries across the nation are reporting a 5%-10% rise in individual attendance. Apparently, folks are not only visiting libraries for the Internet connections, DVD, and periodicals; several city library systems are reporting a marked incline in books being checked out and new cards being issued. More than two million books were checked out in 2009 in the Spokane Public Library system in Washington State, for instance–a 5.6% rise over the year previous–according to a January 2010 article in The Spokesman-Review, along with nearly 14,000 new library cards issued. Folks interviewed in the article like the one-stop-shop approach for research and entertainment, all for free. The presence of Internet terminals seem to be functioning well as a draw. According to 2009 reports available online at www.ca.gov, last year in the Sacramento Public Library system alone, terminals were used 985,755 times, but libraries also lent out 163,822 items, while 87,434 people attended 2,600 programs and librarians answered almost half a million reference questions. In California public libraries statewide, the number of items lent out in 2008 rose nearly 25% over the previous year; the 2009 report also projects that Internet usage in libraries will increase over the next five years by 23%. Libraries have taken notice of such statistics and are evolving along with their patrons. Many libraries can be followed on Twitter, for up-to-the minute news on new titles, classes, programs and even available jobs. Find your library on Twitter for a comprehensive list: The Sacramento Public library can be followed at http://twitter.com/saclib The San Francisco Library can be followed at: http://twitter.com/sfplnews
Ecstasy Unveiled (The Demonica Series) By Larissa Ione Forever, $6.99, 432 pages Writing a series isn’t an easy feat by any means. Carefully crafting and successfully immersing your audience into an alternate universe partnered with a few over the top characters may keep readers clamoring for a book or two. But unless the author is a true professional, an artist, most series wane as the author recycles content over and over again. Larissa Ione is such an artist, a professional. Each book in the Demonica Series is better than the last. Ecstasy Unveiled is a shining star— no, a floodlight, in an over-populated genre quickly reaching Chinese proportions. The hero Lore is a half-breed demon who bartered his service; he has to serve as an assassin for his dark overlord. With one last kill between him and freedom, Lore will do anything to get the job done. The heroine, Idess, an earthbound angel, cannot allow Lore to kill her charge or she’ll never be allowed into Heaven. When the two clash, sparks flash in dark, wicked, and edgy pas-
sion, everything a reader of paranormal romance could ever desire. The action is fastpaced and well crafted. Clear some time in your schedule. You won’t want to put this done until you reach the last page. Reviewed by Lanine Bradley FASHION, con’t from page 10 ionista to reflect on one’s eternal longing for beauty as well as the limits of what is wearable. A Year in Fashion allows one to see the contrasts day to day as one pokes around in these many days of wardrobes. Lively presentation is made between haute couture and ready-to-wear, daring high heels, glamorous eveningwear, not to exclude the superficial and the profound. This brilliant study is a welcome addition to the growing number of books being published on fashion. Reviewed by Claude Ury
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