No Story to Tell: A Novel by K. J. Steele

No Story to Tell: A Novel. K. J. Steele. Fiction Studio Books. 2011. 388 pages. ISBN #: 9781936558209.

Victoria Lackey is a fighting survivor, beginning on the day of her birthday when her twin died and she lived. Her family weren't too thrilled with her and wished her brother had lived. One doesn't need too much of an imagination to know how she grew up; her abusive father and cowering mother die young, followed by an Aunt; and Victoria falls where she will. It's amazing as we progress and meet Bobby her husband who treats her more like a child and possession than a wife. Then we meet her friend, Rose, who seems to be the only one who is sensitive to Victoria's inner world - a world no one in this small town of Hinkley really knows about - oh what a surprise is waiting to burst out of its shell!

Then we meet Elliot Spencer, the man who thinks and feels so widely that he speaks to Victoria's dreams in a way that mirrors so much within any reader's life as well. For Victoria wanted to be a dancer but the people around her, except for her mother who once fought for her to be in a dance recital, thwart her every attempt. Now she decides to give in to the fancy to start a dance school. Where will it go?

How will Bobby react to his new woman who most of the time reacts with fear and submission to him, while he in turn demeans and commands her. What choices does she have. The plot evolves with some strange phone calls and messages that Victoria believes are coming from Elliot and which encourage her more. Again, what a surprise is coming that will shock readers to the core!

One can dream about the "road not taken," but Victoria is a well-developed character who begins to observe her world and dream about possibilities, something almost every reader can relate to in some way.

No Story To Tell is about recreating one's world - something to tell one's self more than other dreamers and idlers! Fascinating read, Ms. Steele!

Fool's Mate by Laura Pedersen

Fool's Mate. Laura Pedersen. CreateSpace Publisher. 2011. 452 pages. ISBN #: 9781463652883.

Josie Kincaid is a cable news network journalist who wants to be reporter who makes a momentous, award-winning contribution to her job. But Josie's a definite out-of-the-box character who is funny, sloppy, and tough lady who is often her own worst enemy. She courts disaster on the job, has cost the company a heap of money by getting into dangerous situations and leaving behind costly wrecks. Her excessive drinking and reputation as the gal who sleeps around with anyone certainly don't help her public persona.

Now she's royally ticked that her company is chipping away with budget cuts and a newbie has been placed in her cubicle, a posh, upscale Yale graduate lawyer who is smart, preppy, and serious, everything that Josie isn't. About all they have in common is having famous parents. That's all about to change, and the journey is the exciting concern of this very funny novel. It all begins when Calvin, the newbie, marries a "society" gal, and Calvin and Josie are thrown together in a journey to Africa, a trip that will change everything and require Josie to grow up fast. Is she up to the task?

Rambunctious and still attracted to Calvin, Josie finally faces the seriousness of a threatening election situation in North Africa that could change all of Europe. Now she has to begin learning to listen to her head and heart about the news and Calvin! What a trip!

It's been quite a while since this reviewer read a Pedersen novel; her skill has evolved in a grand way that I found so pleasing! Fool's Mate bounces along and then proceeds at a taut, riveting pace as the cast of characters in this cleverly-crafted novel live, learn, and grow in a way that gives new meaning to folly and wisdom!!! Delightful!!!

You're Not the One by Alexandra Potter

You're Not the One. Alexandra Potter. Penguin Group, USA. 2011. 384 pp. ISBN #: 9780452296909.

Lucy Hemingway and Nat Kennedy believed they were bound together ever since they visited Venice, Italy and hear a message about those couples who kiss on a gondola traveling under a certain bridge. They each have a memento of that experience and are totally elated with knowing how deep and solid their love is and will endure!!!

But things crash when Nat meets someone else and tells Lucy he is sorry but he will be getting married. It's now ten years later and Lucy pretends it is "water under the bridge" as the saying go. But deep down, she has never stopped loving Nat and wondering what happened to their guaranteed dream life together. Meanwhile, she's an assistant at an art gallery with an owner, Magda, who wants to be Lucy's matchmaker. What follows is as much of a mystery as a romance as Lucy on an assignment to deliver art pieces to a buyer discovers that the purchaser is Nat. As the days go by, they discover their new love but also discover some irritating quirks about each other that are both funny and yet puzzling. How is the promise of eternal love and never being unconnected to happen when they cannot tolerate each other for more than a few minutes?

And what about Adam whom Lucy meets and could really love getting to know and date were it not for Nat who keeps popping up in Lucy's world too often for it to be coincidence? Must Lucy and Nat do something to break what now feels like a curse? How many misunderstandings can Adam endure? What about Lucy's sister who was formerly so cold and uncaring and now reveals a devastating secret that changes Lucy's perspective on all the aspects of her crazy bohemian life?

You're Not the One is a funny, romantic, mysterious, intriguing read you won't forget for a long time. It certainly makes one think about who is "the One!"

The Other Life: A Novel by Ellen Meister

The Other Life: A Novel. Ellen Meister. Penguin Group USA. 320 pages. ISBN #: 9780425243374. SEE SPECIAL OFFER AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE!

So many readers have pondered Robert Frost's poem where one wonders what life would have been like on "The Road Not Taken." But what if one had the opportunity to do just that, to see what life would yield if one had made a different decision about one's lover or spouse, one's job or anything else one considers of ultimate importance?

Quinn Braverman lives two lives. As a child, she learned that there were portals she could enter that would take her to another world. Her mother knows about these entrances into another world existing at the same time as the present one but full of different places and "other" people. Quinn isn't a very secure person and at one time ditched her needy ex-boyfriend, Eugene, to marry Lewis, the man who is caring, observant, and totally in tune with pleasing Quinn rather than himself! Sounds like a dream, right?

But Quinn's life is suddenly turned upside down when she discovers her pregnancy is in danger and the baby she is carrying has a huge medical problem. So is suburban life with this new devastating problem one to continue or should she see what it would be like if she had actually stayed with Eugene in his musical, citified life?Where would she be and more important, who would she be in that other world?

It's a terrifying journey yet one Quinn cannot stop pursuing. There's a mystery connected with her deceased, artistic mother to which Quinn seeks an answer, hoping to achieve peace with her presently questionable life. She seems to sense that the answers will not only determine what her marriage will be like in the future but also help her make the very important decision about this as yet unborn child.

The Other Life is riveting reading and finely written. It deserves a wide audience for its tense, complex, and yes, painful but beautiful world! Finely done, Ms. Meister!!!

Ellen Meister, author of THE OTHER LIFE is doing something really fun for Book Clubs! She just launched a program to thank book club members by name in the acknowledgments section of her next book. She has a Book Club Guestbook on her site now and anyone in a book group that read or plans to read THE OTHER LIFE is free to sign up. All they need to do is visit her site at http://www.websitetoolbox.com/guestbook/ellenmeister and fill out the form. That's it!

Event Horizon Conspiracy by Robert E. Bonson

Event Horizon Conspiracy. Robert E. Bonson. Xlibris Corporation. 2011. 208 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9781465376183.

A man walks toward a limousine driver who nods and opens the door for him. The doors close and locks are in place. For an unspecified reason, the passenger panics and panics and panics; he then tries to get out of the car, fails, and succumbs to a mind-boggling, claustrophobic, fearsome pain that spreads and spreads!

So begins this story of two researchers who have disappeared and the attempt to find them by a relative and Russell, our hero with past experience in aeronautics, criminal investigations and mystery writing. As the story progresses, it seems that this rather secretive research about rDNA is tied to the 2012 Mayan Calendar feverish public commentary about the end of the world or some other scenarios just as shocking and ultimately ending with the same demise of Earth.

What is happening at a funeral home where dead people are buried but no families are involved in the final days of the deceased? Why are there two murders that follow rapidly upon the sharing of secretive information that just might lead the investigators closer to finding one dead researcher and one who still might be alive? If the research isn't connected to the Mayan calendar predictions but instead a diabolical plot to eliminate all but a select few, what can and can't be done to prevent such a horrific possibility from coming to pass?

Robert Bonson's novels have always been intriguing, but this mystery specifically exceeds all of his earlier stories. The complexity of the plot is credible, fear-filled to the point of producing anxiety, and obviously well-researched. The information behind the incredible schemes is depicted in layperson's terms, with enough theoretical possibilities to make the reader believe he or she is right there and that this will indeed all come to pass!

Congratulations Robert E. Bonson on a fascinating, gripping mystery and adventure tale sure to engage many future readers!!! Very nicely done!

At The Mercy of the Queen - A Novel of Anne Boleyn by Anne Clinard Barnhill

At The Mercy of The Queen: A Novel of Anne Boleyn. St. Martin's Press. January 2012. 448 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780312662134.

Lady Margaret Shelton, or Madge as she is known throughout the novel, arrives at the Court of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Madge is 15, close in age to Anne, who is soon to wed Henry. For Henry's late Queen has been put aside, Henry has formed his own Church of England after splitting with Rome over his soon-to-be-Queen Anne. It's a dangerous time for all but the King, who revels only in a reign that gathers more and more wealth from the old Church, delightful food and drink, and of course his voracious sexual appetite now focused solely on Anne. But this novel is as much about Madge as it is Anne Boleyn. For Madge's fortune is explicitly tied to the ups and downs of Henry and Anne's relationship. And all too soon, there are more "down" moments!

Anne and Madge are enigmas, one minute displaying piety and virtue and the next speaking about the most outrageous forms of lovemaking, etc. For neither, quite obviously, is sure of how to gain and keep love. Both are slow to realize how a word spoken impetuously can cascade into dramatic scenes that could cause banishment or even death. Madge is betrothed to a loathsome Sir Norris while she madly falls in love with another man of no real consequence in Henry's Court, Arthur. Anne urges Madge on, as her own romance with the King waxes and wanes, decreasing as she gives birth to a girl and then proceeds to miscarry other babes, including one who would have been the long-sought-after Prince or heir to Henry.

At one point, the Queen will sacrifice the virtue of Madge in order to regain her husband's fancy, a plan that quickly falls apart as Henry suspects the "French" techniques of love as beyond debauchery and obscene. Ironically, the other members of the Court, outside of Cromwell and Jane Seymour, have little place in this tale, even Anne's brother, George.

Having read many, many accounts of Queen Anne Boleyn, this reviewer didn't expect to be so enthralled with another account of same, but Anne Barnhill has managed to craft a thrilling, human, and inspiring portrait of two characters who really did so little to deserve admiration, beyond their obvious physical beauty and charm, but who manage to have readers rooting for their success, even when one knows the end of the story for Anne.

Well-done, Anne Clinard Barnhill! Anne Boleyn is much more likable and probable in your depiction. This is a graceful, spicy, terrible, and totally engaging novel!

Because of You by Cathy Maxwell

Because of You. Cathy Maxwell. Avon Romance Publishers. October 2011. 384 pp. ISBN #: 9780380797103.

"It's not right to hold onto the past once it is done and over." These are words that Yale Carderock thinks and feels on a daily basis. Being a rake is often depicted as fun, adventurous, and far above the mundane thoughts and actions of the majority of people. Yale would have agreed years ago when he was in the throes of his own hedonistic lifestyle, but he's paid dearly for those years, not so much in money as in wrecked relationships. First, he's come back to find his father, with whom he'd hoped to have a stormy but ultimately successful reconciliation, is dead. Second, his reputation is so besmirched that it seems almost hopeless for him to resume living in that village within Northumberland, England in 1806. But he's in for some unanticipated challenges, the chief one being a very spunky female.

Samantha Northrup is living alone and on the verge of being evicted from the vicarage home where she's lived her entire life, the home where her father the Vicar earned the respect and reverence of his parish, that is until he died and they had grander ideas for new residents. It's not easy being treated like an old shoe and Samantha doesn't know what to do next. How shocked she is when an unknown man appears and insists on her giving him the keys to the secret Ayleborough vault.

After their initially charged conversation and reaction to each other, Marvin Browne as he calls himself becomes deathly ill and Samantha will be the one who fights for his life and nurses him back to health. From there on the plot spins wildly with the neighbors forcing the two to marry because "Marvin" has been naked in front of Samantha, then remarried because she was first married to a man with a stolen name. If one doesn't read this as an obvious tongue-in-cheek satire, one would fail to appreciate this as being downright silly.

Not wanting to provide a spoiler, suffice to say that now the larger conflict follows with Yale's brother, the Duke, wanting Yale to assume his rightful place in the family and village and then a devastating loss to his personal business. Through it all, the passion between Yale and Samantha increases, with each vowing no attachment to the other person. It's a rather futile goal in the face of the steamy sex and connection that's being solidly forged in more ways than one.

Romance fiction lovers will love this novel which adds interesting local and foreign elements to an exciting and endearing story of seduction out of conformity in so many ways.