Book Description
A new novel of love and war set in 17th-century England-from the acclaimed author of The Code of Love.
Praised for her "lavish use of history...and vividly detailed settings,"* Cheryl Sawyer sweeps readers back to 17th-century England at the time of the Civil War, where a royal duchess and a warrior prince fight to save a riven kingdom.
Mary Villiers, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, is a ravishing beauty raised as the adopted daughter of Charles I of England. In 1642 she is shocked to find herself opposed to her king when he decides to declare war on Parliament and therefore on his own people. Mary embarks on a dangerous quest to help save the throne of England for its rightful monarch, but first she'll tangle with the king's charismatic nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
Customer Reviews:
Simpering and simmering during the English Civil War.......2007-07-24
Author Cheryl Sawyer attempts to bring to life the much rumored (but unconfirmed) romance between Mary Villiers, the Duchess of Richmond and Prince Rupert of the Rhine, nephew to (the eventually deposed & decapitated) King Charles I of England during the early years of the English Civil War.
Mary Villiers is daughter to the infamous George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (infamous for being lover to King James I and for his infectious charisma & dandified living). She was a very young girl when jealousy and spite lead to the murder of her father & Mary has tried to live a spot-free chaste courtier's life in the court of her informal "adopted" family - that of King Charles I, his wife Queen Henrietta-Maria and their sons. King Charles I is famous for his ineptitude which eventually lead to the overthrow of the English monarchy, and his wife, Queen Henrietta-Maria for her excessiveness, frivolousness and Catholic fervor. We meet Mary when she is 20 and in a passionless but respectful and friendly marriage to the Duke of Richmond. Mary pays court to the King and Queen nearly without question and without asking for favors - loyalty above all.
In walks the darkly handsome, roguish P.O.W. Prince Rupert of the Rhine, followed by his reputation as a ladies man. Mary and Rupert find themselves drawn to one and other and spend a year yearning and resisting their passionate urges. This sounds like a great set up for a good romance set against political turmoil... but the story didn't deliver. The passion is under developed (too many longing gazes and hidden thoughts) and the chance encounters are hokey (like meeting in a dark tunnel beneath the streets of Oxford that no one had traveled for 200 years). The military strategy sessions and battle descriptions did not add to the love story, and the love story did not add to the political history of the time.
Mary is hard to really truly like - her unwaivering loyalty and friendship to the selfish and fickle Henrietta-Maria is frustrating, and, as written, she seems too fragile, unaware and unsure of herself to hold the interest of the worldly, gallant Prince Rupert. Rupert, on the other hand, is a quirky man who holds to a chivalric code, speaks of himself in the third person, keeps odd pets and is a savage on the battle field (all documented to be true).
I wanted to like this book - but I found it to be just "OK" and a bit too slow for my liking. Those interested in reading about King Charles I and Queen Henrietta-Maria may find their presentation here of interest, though it is secondary to the main story. Sawyer keeps their characters consistent with opinions of the time. They are devoted to each other despite their religious differences. The Queen is a bit domineering, extremely fickle, and "meddlesome" in governmental and military affairs. Perhaps it would not have been such a significant flaw at the time if she had good political instinct, but she did not. Nor did her husband - Sawyer shows him to us as the indecisive and inept ruler he was.
To clarify, I did not expect a traditional sappy "historical romance" & was thus disappointed. I enjoy well written historical novels with romantic subplots. I enjoy the suspense of courtship - the Winter Prince just didn't hit the mark. If love expressed solely by whispered phrases once every 6 months and yearning gazes is your game, The Winter Prince is the book for you.
Book Description
This magnificent, sweeping work traces the histories of the Native peoples of the American West from their arrival thousands of years ago to the early years of the nineteenth century. Emphasizing conflict and change, One Vast Winter Count offers a new look at the early history of the region by blending ethnohistory, colonial history, and frontier history. Drawing on a wide range of oral and archival sources from across the West, Colin G. Calloway offers an unparalleled glimpse at the lives of generations of Native peoples in a western land soon to be overrun.
Customer Reviews:
First Rate Survey.......2006-08-30
This is an excellent survey of the history of the American West up to about 1800. For several good reasons, Calloway construes the American West as including much of Canada, the Old West of the early 19th and late 18th centuries - the trans-appalachian areas, and northern Mexico. Calloway begins with a nice precis of prehistory and covers major phases of North American native cultures such as the Missippian societies and events such as the spread of maize agriculture. Since much of the historical record per se comes from the accounts of early European explorers and settlers, the majority of the book is an excellent history of the interactions of native cultures with European invaders and the resulting effects on native societies. Calloway devotes ample space not only to oft discussed topics like the Seven Years War but also to excellent coverage of the Spanish and French Empires in North America, the coming of the horse, and the impact of European based trade networks. The emphasis throughout is the life and history of native societies. The quality of writing is excellent and the bibliography and footnotes are first rate.
One Vast Winter Count.......2004-09-13
Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from this book. But I would not have learned nearly as much if I did not come to the book with quite a bit of knowledge. I suggest that you read the excellent "Atlas of the North American Indian" before you read this book, or at least that you have the "Atlas" by your side as you read this book.
The book has several very good features. One is the depiction of the adaptation of Native American cultures to changing circumstances, particularly climate change, the introduction of corn, the return of the horse and the acquisition of firearms. Another is the very valuable narrative thread throughout the book about trade with Europeans and the impact it had on Native Americans and on the relations of tribes to each other. Another is the section on the impact of the late 18th century smallpox epidemic. The book would be valuable for these alone.
If you would like to read more about trade with Europeans and the related impacts, I recommend "Before Lewis and Clark" by Shirley Christian.
But there are serious problems with the book. Where to begin? There are so many deficiencies that it is hard to pick a starting point.
Maps are few and late. Rivers are important to Native American history, but the first map showing a comprehensive view of the rivers of what is now the United States does not appear until page 127 and on that map the rivers are not named. The first map naming the rivers of what is now the northeast United States does not appear until page 229. Another map without river names appears on page 271. The Arkansas, Red, and Sabine Rivers are mentioned on page 105, but are not named on a map until page 329. The Angelina and Neches Rivers are also mentioned on page 105, but I cannot find them on any map in the book.
Terminology is introduced but not defined or explained. What the heck is a potlatch? The first reference is merely to a potlatch. A page later, there is a reference to a potlatch ceremony. But the author does not tell us what it is.
Likewise, confusion reigns regarding language and tribal groups. Early on, the author speaks of the Athabaskans. Pray tell, what is an Athabaskan? Is Athabaskan a tribe, a cultural group, or a language? There is one reference to later on to "Athabaskan speakers," but it is not in the index.
On pages 297 and 298 the author switches back and forth between the terms "Piegan" and "Blackfoot" several times. This will be confusing if the reader does not know that Piegan is generally taken to be a language and Blackfoot is generally taken to be a tribe and both terms describe almost the same group. And my terminology may not be exact here.
And what is an Algonquin? If the author had devoted just a few pages early on to an overview of Native American languages and cultures and how they intersect, the book would be much, much better. There are web sites that offer quite a bit of detail on Native American languages.
The author is obviously very knowledgeable and to an extent, I think that he is trapped by his own knowledge. He uses terminology that is familiar to him, but which may not be familiar to an average reader. He does not realize that he is writing over the heads of much of his audience.
There are strange gaps in the book. For example, there is no mention of the continuing discussion about the date of the first migration of humans to the Americas. And, there has been some very interesting work done lately on genetic relationships between various ethnic groups based on DNA analysis, but that work is not mentioned at all.
There are omissions that are apparently dictated by political correctness. For example, the author mentions that in Meso-America (wherever that is, because the author does not tell us) ball games had a sacred significance, but fails to tell us what that significance was. Again, you can search the web and find more information. Actually, Meso-America is a region covering some of the southern part of what is now Mexico and extending further south. The sacred significance of ball games was that the losing team was sacrificed. I'm not sure we know whether the players were volunteers or not.
On the other hand, for this day and age, the book is curiously Euro-centric. For example, there is no mention at all of Northwest Coast Native Americans until contact with Europeans. The Northwest Coast tribes have a fascinating cultural history with many features, such as totem poles, that are very distinctive. But there is not a word about their culture. Many other tribes are mentioned only on contact with Europeans. Do we know anything about them before contact?
My last few comments point to the largest deficiency of the book. There is very little treatment of Native American religion, culture or art.
There is some mention of religion particularly in the first chapter, but there is no overview. One common thread seems to be narratives about emerging from darkness into light. Is this in fact a common thread? The author is silent. A few pages devoted to an overview would have been very helpful.
There is very little discussion of Native American culture. OK, we know they ate corn (but the famous trinity of corn, beans and squash goes unmentioned) and later buffalo and there is some discussion in passing of leadership and adoption customs.
But other aspects of Native American culture are neglected. What did these people wear? What were their farming practices? How did they store and cook their food? How did they preserve their meat? What sort of houses did they live in, apart from lodges (or tepees), Pueblos or cliff dwellings? Did they bury their dead? What were their courtship customs? What customs prevailed before contact and how did they change with contact? And so on and on. Do we know anything about these things? If so, what are the sources? If not, why not?
Native American art is neglected entirely. My view is that Native American art is frequently very powerful and evocative. It was and is an important part of Native American culture. But there is almost no discussion of Native American art in the book, even though the book draws its' title from a particular form of Native American art.
Overall, the book fails. A popular reader depending on this book for a history of Native Americans in the period will be left very much short of where she or he should be. The editors would have been wise to break it up into two books and to spend some time to overcome some of the failings I have mentioned.
I don't know a book to recommend on Native American religion, culture and art. Perhaps another correspondent can suggest one.
With focus on evolving Native politics and interactions.......2004-05-16
Part of the University of Nebraska Press "History of the American West" series, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis And Clark by Colin Calloway is not just another casual or coffee table treatment, but a weighty and in-depth examination of the Native American west before Lewis and Clark, highly recommended for college-level holdings and the personal reading lists of Native American History students and dedicated American West history buffs. Over 600 pages traces the histories of the Native American peoples of the west from their arrival thousands of years ago to the early years of the 19th century. The focus on evolving Native politics and interactions with various cultures and the new look blending ethnohistory and frontier history makes One Vast Winter Count a unique and strongly recommended presentation.
VASTLY INFORMATIVE.......2004-02-04
Colin Calloway has written an impressive debut volume for the University of Nebraska Press' History of the American West series. It weaves the latest archeological discoveries together with Native American oral history into cotemporary European accounts to produce a panoramic overview of 15,000 years of human existence is western America. His narrative ends at the point where coventional school textbooks begin -- with Lewis and Clark. This book has expanded my understanding by showing me that "The West is not a land of empty spaces with a short history..." Calloway wants us to see western history as a "long and unbroken continuum" that stretches backward in a vast spiral of years and forward beyond our own lifetimes.
Most of us have a static view of Native American culture in the West; a 19th century snapshot with tribal characteristics and territories frozen in place. Calloway gives the reader a motion picture full of swirling migrations and altered identitites -- the result of altered climate, technology, as well as of European intervention. He integrates important events in native history into the timeline of world history in a way I have not previously encountered. As the Revolutionary War raged east of the Appalachians, a great smallpox epidemic that reduced native populations by 50-75% was raging to the west. The land Lewis and Clark explored was far emptier than it had been just a generation earlier.
The diffusion of corn-growing into cooler regions of North America, starting in the sixth century C.E. initiated a revolution in Native American life. At the time the Normans invaded England, the Cahokias were building monumental earthworks and plazas amid fields of corn at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. It was probably the largest city North America had seen until New York surpassed it at the end of the 18th Century. The Cohokias, like the Anasazi of the Southwest, had vanished before Lewis and Clark pushed west. The arrival of the horse on the plains in the 16th century coicided with climatic changes that expanded buffalo populations. Some native groups that had adopted the agrarian life forsook their cornfields, moved out onto the plains, and morphed into nomadic warrior cultures. The Sioux, Apaches, and Cheyenne were farmers before they were buffalo hunters.
Although ONE VAST WINTER COUNT is unapologetically academic, it is well written and very readable. Without interrupting the narrative flow, Calloway identifies his sources and earmarks points of scholarly disagreement. The book devotes less space to native cultures of the Pacific coast than to others. Calloway's explanation is that he had to rely heavily on the record created by Europeans (who came later to that region). He says he chose to make his primary focus "centers of action and interaction". He ends the book by pointing to the depopulation of the rural West, the exhaustion of water resources, and the return of the buffalo as signs that the endless spiral of winters may be making another turn.
Amazon.com
If science seeks to demystify life, literature can restore a needed measure of wonder to it. Or, as one of the characters in Barry Lopez's collection of short stories Winter Count puts it, "If you are careful, I think there is probably nothing that cannot be retrieved."
Much indeed is retrieved in Lopez's pages, first published in 1981: lost species, lost memories, lost emotions. In one especially Borgesian story, a university professor seeks to puzzle out the facts behind 19th-century reports of a herd of white buffalo that, singing, pointed a way into heaven. In another, a young man catches a glimpse into the workings of the stars and planets in an unlikely corner of the Arizona desert. In still another, a traveler recapitulates the pain of lost love while contemplating the graceful flight of herons.
Lopez's marvelous stories are about many things. Underlying them is a shared precision of language and vision, a precision that characterizes the author's works of nonfiction (Of Wolves and Men, Arctic Dreams). Behind Lopez's stories as well is a quiet insistence on the centrality of nature--an awareness of which, he suggests, can make the busiest city livable, and the deepest wounds of the heart bearable. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
"Perfectly crafted. . . . [These] stories expand of their own accord, lingering in the mind the way intense light lingers in the retina." --Los Angeles Times
"Animals and landscapes have not had this weight, this precision, in American fiction since Hemingway's young heroes were fishing the streams of upper Michigan and Spain." --San Francisco Chronicle
Aflock of great blue herons descending through a snowstorm to the streets of New York. . . . A river in Nebraska disappearing mysteri-ously. . . . A ghostly herd of buffalo that sings a song of death. . . . A mystic who raises constellations of stones from the desert floor. . . . All these are to be found in Winter Count, the exquisite and rapturous collection by the National Book Award-winning author of
Arctic Dreams.
In these resonant and unpredictable stories Barry Lopez proves that he is one of the most important and original writers at work in America today. With breathtaking skill and a few deft strokes he produces painfully beautiful scenes. Combining the real with the wondrous, he offers us a pure vision of people alive to the immediacy and spiritual truth of nature.
"Powerful. . . . [Lopez] can steal your breath away." --Minneapolis Tribune
"Richly allusive, moving, compassionate, these stories celebrate the web of nature that holds the world together."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
Customer Reviews:
No small wonder . . ........2005-07-29
This collection of ten early short stories by Barry Lopez seems written more than a little under the influence of Borges. Elegantly told, they are designed to evoke a deep sense of wonder in the reader. The settings are often remote - the open prairie, the desert - and touch on what feel like the remote worlds of other cultures and other times, especially Native American.
The title story refers to the Indian practice of keeping a record of tribal history by representing the one most significant event of each year as a picture on a buffalo robe. In this story, a modern-day scholar immersed in the subject of this lost tradition is himself lost and out of place at a conference of academics.
One man becomes fascinated by a French mansion built on the Montana-North Dakota border in the 1860s. Another, an early explorer of the West, attempts to uncover the mystery of a disappearing river in 1840s Nebraska. Still another, in the 1960s - like a chapter out of Castaneda - finds an Indian in the Arizona desert, who conjures a vision of the universe from an arrangement of stones lying in the sand. In the small-scale domesticities of modern fiction, it's hard to find imaginative writing of this kind. I highly recommend these stories as an escape from the everyday and the ordinary.
The magic of words.......2004-02-11
This book will send you to the dictionary while taking your breath away. Other reviewers have mentioned the phrase, "If one is patient...if you are careful, I think there is probably nothing that cannot be retrieved" from the story, The Orrery. Later in the story, The Location of the River, Lopez recounts the belief that " the history of the earth was revealed anew each spring in the shapes of the towering cumulus clouds that moved over the country from the north and west". Powerful, glorious statements.
The language in this book is so wonderful, I can only let Barry Lopez speak for himself. Two others. From ,The Woman Who Had Shells,"We carry such people with us in an imaginary way,proof against some undefined but irrefutable darkness in the world.".
For the readers, from ,The Lover of Words, "He did not wish to be distracted from...sequence in a life of readings, whereby one book leads by diaphanous but ineluctable threads to the next".
Let the thread of your reading lead you to this book.
Winter Count.......2001-05-06
The mood in Lopez's collection of short stories leaves one with this lingering feeling...one which I cant quite put my finger on. The mood set in his writing is calm, but the vivid descriptions of his words force vibrant, elaborate pictures to be sketched into the mind...so much so, that, although my body fell into a cozy, drowsy, PEACEFUL serenity as I read, my brain was still trying to cope with the force of colorful images invading it. A truly magnificent writer, one who incorporates the views of those from all around the globe, those of different backgrounds and lifestyles, and snugly wraps their individual stories together to form one great one through nature.
For Two Stories..........2000-06-05
It seems an earlier reviewer had the same feelings as I about this book; I would just say - buy it for 'The Woman Who Had Shells' and 'The Orrery'. Both are twists of simple, magical stuff.
Book Description
Winter counts—pictorial calendars by which Plains Indians kept track of their past—marked each year with a picture of a memorable event. The Lakota, or Western Sioux, recorded many different events in their winter counts, but all include “the year the stars fell,” the spectacular Leonid meteor shower of 1833–34. This volume is an unprecedented assemblage of information on the important collection of Lakota winter counts at the Smithsonian, a core resource for the study of Lakota history and culture. Fourteen winter counts are presented in detail, with a chapter devoted to the newly discovered Rosebud Winter Count. Together these counts constitute a visual chronicle of over two hundred years of Lakota experience as recorded by Native historians.
A visually stunning book, The Year the Stars Fell features full-color illustrations of the fourteen winter counts plus more than 900 detailed images of individual pictographs. Explanations, provided by their nineteenth-century Lakota recorders, are arranged chronologically to facilitate comparison among counts. The book provides ready access to primary source material, and serves as an essential reference work for scholars as well as an invaluable historical resource for Native communities.
Book Description
Winter Count is a historical novel set during the fifteen turbulent years leading up to the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Turtleheart, a Teton Sioux, and his wife, Evensigh, a white woman adopted by the Tetons as an infant, are thrust into this history when they are ambushed by a Santee Sioux working as a scout for white gold miners. Turtleheart is tortured and left for dead, while Evensigh is kidnapped and sent to St. Louis to assimilate into white culture. Their struggle to reunite is set against the backdrop of escalating conflicts with the U.S. cavalry, the negotiation and breaking of treaties, and the formation of the Sioux reservation.
Originally published in 1967, Winter Count is one of the few book-length works of fiction produced by a Native American to be published before the 1970s.
Customer Reviews:
An interesting tale about the Teuton Sioux Tribe.......2004-02-29
I read this book when I was a boy. It was my mother's autographed copy. This book gives a very realistic tale of what life was like leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Customer Reviews:
Remarkable! Very highly recommended.......2002-06-16
Dinner with friends at a hotel-casino in Los Vegas results in a stunning revelation for thirteen-year-old Brett Corbitt. In a chance encounter on the stairs as he descends to the lobby, Brett sights the mother he believes to be deceased. It is her face, and her body and her voice, but there is no flicker of recognition. When Brett arrives home, he persuades his father, Detective Grady Corbitt, to return to the hotel with him. Even though the woman calls herself Martha Walters, Brett and Grady know the woman's true identity as Susan Corbitt. What they do not know is why she did not recognize her son or why she disappeared.
Six months ago Susan was found wandering a nearby Indian reservation. She suffers from amnesia, recovering first in the home of residents and later at a women's shelter. When the hotel-casino opened, she got a job as a maid. Fearing why she was lost in the desert and possible consequences if someone recognized her before she regained her memory, Susan changed her hair color and never went to the police. But when the sexy detective arrives at her apartment, it was chemistry. She cannot help feeling pleased to be married to him, even if she does not recognize Grady. She is likewise delighted with her son. But Susan will never be out of danger until they learn why a bomb was planted to kill, yet her body was dumped in the desert.
Author Rebecca Winters creates a convincing amnesia story with SHE'S MY MOM. The complications of memory loss provide strong conflict, yet are touchingly handled. As Susan falls in love all over again, she is painfully aware of the differences between now, and the woman Grady has been married to for seventeen years. And those differences are both profound and unforgettable, no matter how much that she and Grady want to deny their importance. Her son Brett likewise lends a poignant note in his eagerness to regain his mother. Grady's struggle in some ways is the most difficult as he struggles with self-honesty and reconciling a past that his wife cannot remember with the present. A remarkable and memorable tale, SHE'S MY MOM comes very highly recommended.
exhilarating romantic suspense thriller.......2002-06-08
In the newest Las Vegas hotel, the Etoile, thirteen year old Brett Corbett sees a maid on the stairwell who looks exactly like his mother. The problem is that his mom died in an explosion six months ago. Brett tells his police detective dad Grady, who agrees to visit the Etoile though he worries his son might be going over the edge. Grady feels guilty because his own mourning has prevented him from being approachable for his son.
At the hotel, Brett learns that a woman Martha Walters whose hair is shorter and darker than his Susan, but otherwise is her identical twin works there. Using his police credentials, Grady and Brett obtain Martha's address and visit the maid at her apartment only to find the woman suffers amnesia. Martha suffers from amnesia, but the two Corbett males know she is the third member of their family. As she moves in with them, Susan struggles to regain her memory while Grady worries whether someone wanted to kill her or was she just caught in a crossfire.
Rebecca Winters always provides an interesting romantic tale and her latest entry, SHE'S MY MOM, is an exhilarating suspense thriller. The story line hooks the audience from the moment Brett mumbles the word "mom?". The male Corbetts are a dynamic pair, but the plot belongs to Susan, who struggles between living with two strangers and doing the right thing for the pair who obviously grieved yet still love her. Fans of contemporary romantic suspense will enjoy this strong novel.
Harriet Klausner
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Lone Dog's Winter Count
Diane Glancy
Manufacturer: West End Press
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ASIN: 0931122643 |
Book Description
Lone Dog recorded his calendar on buffalo hide for the Dakota Nation, each pictograph signifying an outstanding event from 1800 through 1871. With contemporary pictographs in the form of poems, Diane Glancy uses this idea of commemoration as a vehicle for her observations on the present and the past.
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Red Horse Owner's Winter Count;: The Oglala Sioux, 1786-1968
Moses Red Horse Owner
Manufacturer: Printed by Booster Pub. Co
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WINTER COUNT
Connie Dover
Manufacturer: Unholy Day Press:kc MO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0972911472 |
Customer Reviews:
Fabulous! Very highly recommended.......2002-01-10
Captain Jace Riley of the Texas Rangers has just two months to track the killers who murdered his mentor during an armored car robbery. So far his undercover assignment as a summer relief driver of a parcel service has turned up nothing in the West Texas mountains. Now he only has two weeks left and no leads. Then a chance encounter with a stranger takes him to Dana Turner's rented trailer.
When she opens the door, Dana sees a man in uniform and fears he's there with an arrest warrant. She spent seven months in prison for the murder of her sister until a judge overturned the conviction. Although she was innocent, she knows many people will only see her prison record rather than her exoneration. Worse, prison changed her. Her claustrophobia has gotten much worse, and she's learned to appreciate every little mundane freedom. Rather trust for her fellow man, she is now filled with suspicion.
Dana came to West Texas to work at an isolated observatory and gaze at the stars. Now for the first time in a long time, Dana is attracted to a man. Conflicting emotions lead to alarming complications to her previously quiet existence. Worse, Dana and Jace come to realize that she's in danger from her landlord's grandson. And Jace can't decide if she's associated with the cop-killers, or the woman of his dreams.
I confess to having a weakness for bold characterizations with an unconventional past. Author Rebecca Winters fills that type with flair, creating heroine Dana who tries to leave the pain of imprisonment behind her while embracing the newfound strengths such an experience produces. Her understandable distaste for law enforcement creates a delightful conundrum since her soul mate happens to be an undercover Texas Ranger. Further, Jace's early misgivings about her background create the perfect balance of tension and passion. Indeed, the balance of strong characterizations and a fascinating plot makes BENEATH A TEXAS SKY a terrific read. Very highly recommended.
engaging police procedural romance.......2002-01-09
Six months ago in Austin, two men held up an armored car stealing a million dollars and killing three people that included retired Texas Ranger Gibb Barton. Most of Gibb's law enforcement associates mourn his death, but Ranger Captain Jace Riley obsesses on bringing the murderers to justice as he lost a close friend. Clues lead Jace to go undercover in the Cloud Rim vicinity of the Texas' Davis Mountains.
In Cloud Rim, Jace wonders if female astronomer Dana Turner, recently released from prison when a California judge vacated a murder conviction, is involved with the killers. He plans to interrogate her, but to the shock of Jace and Dana, they are very attracted to one another. However, she does not trust males except for her famous father because of her murder rap and a graduate student stealing her scientific work while she lingered in prison. He does not trust her because he feels she must be a cohort of the killers. Though this couple falls in love, an infinite future together seems darker than the night sky over the Davis Mountains.
BENEATH A TEXAS SKY is an engaging police procedural romance that stars two delightful but wary lead protagonists. The hunt for the killers engages the audience on two levels: that of the actual investigation and the growing romantic feelings between Jace and Dana. The astronomical tidbits interwoven into the enjoyable story line provides fascinating starry references. All this leads to the fact that Rebecca Winters remains a writer for all seasons.
Harriet Klausner
Books:
- Touring the Cabot Trail: Second Edition (Illustrated Site Guide Series)
- Transcriptional Regulation in Eukaryotes: Concepts, Strategies, and Techniques
- Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices
- United States Adventures in Time and Place
- Utah's National Parks: Hiking, Camping, and Vacationing in Utah's Canyon Country : Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands
- Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged
- Voices from Legendary Times: We Are a Bridge Between Past and Future
- Wildflowers and Weeds: A Guide in Full Color
- Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
- Xeriscape Gardening: Water Conservation for the American Landscape
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