A Lasting Impression by Tamera Alexander

Reviewed by Tammy Doherty –

A LASTING IMPRESSION immerses the reader into the gilded world of the super-rich in late 19th century America. From the start, the characters are captivating. Claire’s inability to go against her father as well her blind obedience to his command and that of Uncle Antoine is hard to grasp in this modern world. Ms. Alexander seems to have realized this—she frequently, yet gently, reminds readers of the difference between our world and that of the South 150 years ago.
This difference is seen as strongly, though more subtly, in Sutton Monroe. His adherence to honor and honesty make him stand out from modern society’s standards. That he is not swayed merely by money shows the strength of his character and personality.

Claire and Sutton find each other physically attractive; however, this is not what draws them together. Both like the good qualities in the other. The romance develops slowly and believably. The obstacles to their relationship are mostly due to the setting—time and place—and somewhat self-imposed. Again, this works well, especially towards the end when the rules of society seem too big an obstacle to overcome.

In addition to being a wonderful romance story, A LASTING IMPRESSION is fine historical novel. Ms. Alexander paints a beautiful picture of Nashville and particularly Belmont Mansion, providing a rich tapestry which sets the stage for the action and conflicts. It’s easy to sink into the atmosphere of post-Civil War Tennessee, with all the difficulties of the Reconstruction Era.

Despite the novel’s length (426 pages), the story does not drag. The pages turn quickly and there’s a sense of being pulled through a time warp to view actual events. The Belmont Mansion really exists in Nashville. Likewise, Adelicia Aklin really lived there and though her characterization is fictional, Ms. Alexander used historical records to bring Adelicia to life. Even more, this story reads as if Claire and Sutton, and all the secondary characters, were real and that the events depicted actually happened.

This novel will truly leave A LASTING IMPRESSION.

Review of Walks Alone by Sandi Rog

By Nike Chillemi –

WALKS ALONE captivated and mesmerized me at times. No wonder it won in the Grace Award 2012 Action-Adventure/Western/Epic Fiction category.

This is a well-written epic novel beginning in Holland and ending in the old west. I loved the way it opened with the tenderness of Anna’s widowed father aboard ship. It was hard not to get involved in the father’s dream of traveling to Denver City with seven-year-old Anna to start a new life. Unfortunately, Anna’s father falls ill in New York City and passes away. She is left in the care her father’s brother for six terrible years.

The scenes with Anna’s abusive uncle were brutal and fully engaging. After Anna escapes from her uncle, she travels westward by train, and finally joins a wagon train where she’s not well treated. There is a fascinating, though not explicit, bathing scene in a river, where an exhausted Anna allows herself to relax and find relief from the intense and life-threatening heat of the prairie. When half-breed Jean-Marc comes upon her with a small band of angry-braves, the reader is hooked between instant knowledge of the hero’s strong attraction to her and the extreme danger she’s in. Anna is taken by this brave’s strange blue-green eyes and can’t help wondering how it is that he speaks English better than she does.

Ms. Rog understands Native American life in that era quite well. I appreciated her attention to the details of Cheyenne tribal life. She did an excellent job of showing the anger and murderous rage of the braves as well as the prejudice of the settlers and their inability to see Native Americans as people, which led to Indian massacres.

Both Anna/Walks Alone and Jean Marc/White Eagle are flawed and well written. White Eagle’s poetic declaration of how his love is so large and encompassing that he sees and hears Walks Alone everywhere, even in the wind, was superb. He tells her of his pain at having caught her engaging in conversation with his sworn enemy, the man who led the deadly raid against his tribe. Through this, the author conveys how painful it is for Father God to witness His children engaging with idols. Beautifully done. Touches the reader at a deep spiritual level.

My only problem was with Anna’s continued insistence on finding herself and her pulling away from White Eagle after their Native American marriage is consummated and then again after his poetic declaration of love. I’m not sure such personal enlightenment was high on the list in those days. However, the author did manage to sweep me back into the story. Then the story would move on and carry me through thrilling bandit attacks, chilling raids on White Eagle’s tribe by a rogue Cheyenne warrior and his band of braves. A fantastic read, which I highly recommend.

River Rising by Athol Dickson

Review By Nike Chillemi –

Dickson writes with poetical grace, using the historical flood on the Mississippi River of 1927 as a backdrop. I delighted in reading this work with language that flowed like literary fiction while leading me into a complex mystery story. Significant issues are raised, questions asked.

Reverend Hale Poser, a black man with piercing blue eyes, leaves a high paying and respected position as chaplain in a New Orleans orphanage and travels to Pilotville, LA, where he takes a job as janitor in the Negro infirmary. Poser was an orphan and has reason to believe he will find out about his ancestry in Pilotville. His arrival makes a few in the town suspicious, including Dorothy Truett, a nurse in the infirmary, who it also attracted to him.

Under the wing of Papa DeGroot, a rich white businessman who built the infirmary, the Negro community has felt secure and largely untouched by the Jim Crow atmosphere pervading the south at that time. At the infirmary, Rosa Lamont agonizes with a breech birth until Hale Poser massages her protruding belly, turning the baby around. Baby Hannah is born. Some in the town see this as a miracle. Others fear the janitor is a flimflam man. Her parents rejoice and then the unthinkable happens. The baby vanishes. Both white and colored residents of Pilotville search the swamp and Hale Poser learns this is not the first baby to disappear. Baby disappearances have been going on for years. Reluctantly, Dorothy Truett takes Poser to the grave of a woman whose baby was stolen long ago.

Jean Tibbets, harbormaster of sorts, thought the troubles were over. Then this strange colored preacher came to town. Tibbets saw the janitor praying with arms outstretched near the white church, which made him uneasy. Now another colored baby has vanished. Was that coincidence? There are those in Pilotville who think this Hale Poser asks too many questions about the infants who went missing long ago. Some fear he’s stirring up all kinds of trouble. He asks why the whites and colored folk never worship together. Both the Negro and white preachers put him off, but he doesn’t quit asking. This reveals festering antagonism and resentment that is seldom voiced in Pilotville.

When all others except the baby’s father have given up the search for Baby Hannah, Hale Poser continues in his efforts to find the infant. As if baby snatching weren’t bad enough, then there’s a real nasty turn in the plot. As horrid as events become, Hale Poser’s spirituality and determination to serve God shine through. Was he a miracle worker? A prophet?

This novel got to me. As Hale Poser questions his own spiritual motivations, I had no choice but to look at mine. Athol Dickson has a unique and beautiful voice. The second edition of this novel has just come out and it is well worth the read.

WEDNESDAY’S CHILD by Clare Revell

Reviewed By Tammy Doherty –

I had the privilege of reading WEDNESDAY’S CHILD by Clare Revell for pre-publication review. Clare is an author who lives in England but is published in the United States. Her novels are written with that in mind, peppered with loads of British terms and wit, but in a way that Americans can understand and enjoy. Her style and voice are easy to read and keep the reader hooked, page by page. I don’t have an eReader and the computer is shared in the evenings with other family members. As soon as I started WEDNESDAY’S CHILD, though, I greedily horded the computer so I wouldn’t have to stop reading.

The plot for this novel is mostly romance with a light suspense. It opens with an event that scars Liam Page, physically and spiritually. Though horrifying, Ms. Revell does not get graphic with descriptions. Even so, Liam’s pain is palpable and the reader is instantly connected to him. When he meets Jacqui Dorne, neither is looking for love. Ironically, Liam tips over a vase of flowers spilling water all over Jacqui’s laptop. When it turns out she’s the landscape architect just hired by the school where Liam works, both start to suspect they were meant to meet.

Romance blooms in a believable, natural progression. Liam’s damaged faith is a roadblock for Jacqui. Ms. Revell delivers a nice spiritual message without ramming it down her reader’s throat. Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? We all have difficulty with that one. Jacqui has come to terms with it herself and now helps Liam overcome his painful past. Then the suspense part of the story really kicks in.
From the start, the “bad guy” is known—Vince, Jacqui’s former boyfriend. Just what is he up to and why, though? Jacqui and Liam both plunge into a world of spies and intrigue in an effort to find out. Vince understandably dislikes Liam. How far will he go to get rid of the competition?

This novel is a page-turner. It’s the third in a series based on Ms. Revell’s rewrite of an old children’s nursery rhyme:

Monday’s Child must hide for protection,
Tuesday’s Child tenders direction,
Wednesday’s Child grieves for his soul,
Thursday’s Child chases the whole,
Friday’s Child is a man obsessed,
Saturday’s Child might be possessed,
And Sunday’s Child on life’s seas is tossed,
Awaiting the Lifeboat that rescues the lost.

I look forward to reading the others in this series.

Deception by Lillian Duncan

Reviewed By Nike Chillemi –

Patti Jakowski’s life is super boring, until she gets a phone call from a terrified four-year-old claiming to be her niece. Although Patti feels for the little girl, she believes the claim is preposterous. She hasn’t seen her twin sister in years, but even so, she feels that if she had a niece she would’ve known about it. So, the child must be mistaken. The author’s skill comes through at the outset, as this phone call between Patti and the frightened child is both tender and heartwarming, but also heart wrenching.

This single phone call changes the direction of Patti’s life, as she determines she must go to the child to find out for herself what is going on. She learns that indeed, little Sabrina is her niece and that her identical twin sister Jamie is missing. When Sabrina’s nanny gives Patti the guided tour of Jamie’s house, which in reality is more like a mansion, Patti realizes her sister is a very wealthy woman. Patti remembers Jamie as the flighty and irresponsible, always getting into one scrape or another while growing up and living in New York City in an apartment with roaches. She can’t help but wonder if Jamie came by all this wealth illegally. When she finds her sister’s purse, she knows Jamie didn’t leave the house willingly. A woman doesn’t leave of her own accord without taking her handbag.

It’s not long before a handsome sergeant from the local police force is involved in the case. Sgt. Carter Caldwell is initially skeptical. Jamie’s job takes her out of town frequently and he’s sure she’ll turn up on her own sooner or later…though he’s got this niggling feeling in his gut that something’s amiss somewhere. Initially Pattie is furious with the police sergeant and doesn’t understand why he can’t see what’s as plain as the nose on his face…her sister is in big trouble.

In short order, an FBI agent friend of Jamie’s gets involved and Patti learns Jamie has been doing dangerous undercover work for the federal agency…thus explaining the title DECEPTION. As it turns out Sabrina’s father is involved with a terrorist cell and Jamie volunteered to help implicate him in terrorist activities. The FBI wants to find Jamie just as much as Patti does.

Pattie is nearly accosted by a jogger on the beach near Jamie’s house. Pattie finds her sister’s Bible and realizes Jamie is a believer. Pattie falls asleep that night reading her twin’s Bible. When the jogger assaults the nanny and tries to kidnap Sabrina, a full court press is on by both the FBI and Sgt. Caldwell to find Jamie. Of course, Patti insists on becoming part of the investigation. The plot takes quite a few twists and turns. The bad guys turn out to be very bad indeed, something I like in a suspense novel.

The main characters and a few of the important subordinate characters are Christians. As the story goes forward and Patti and Carter grow closer, beginning a romance, their faith also deepens. Ultimately, it is a story about the importance of strong family relationships and also about never giving up on the people you love.

This is the second novel by Lillian Duncan I’ve read in the romantic suspense genre. The first was PURSUED. I recommend both of them. This is a very talented writer.

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