Juliana Garnett - Annie Garrett - René J. Garrod
Garnett, Juliana - SCOTSMAN, THE (Bantam - 1998) (2)
Alexander Fraser's brother is captured by the Earl of Warfield's son, Nichols, who let his father keep Alex's brother and another man as prisoners. Alex takes Warfield's daughter, Catherine, as his prisoner and wants to exchange her for his brother, but it doesn't work out that way. Alex and Catherine fall in love.
I waited almost a year for this book to come out and it was a disappointment to me. I almost put it down, but I gave it a chance. There were too many villains and not enough love, and I don't like my heroes to get tortured like this. Ms. Garnett must have been angry with someone to write THE SCOTSMAN the way she did. I hope others are not as disappointed as I was in this book. ~Jackie G. (mdgrice@worldnet.att.net)
Garnett, Juliana - VOW, THE (Bantam - 1998) (5)
THE VOW takes place in the ninth century, when King William of Normandy was conquering and uniting the Saxons and the Normans and fighting the Danes and the Scots.
Luc Louvat, a knight in King William's favor, is sent to quell and conquer a rebellion at Wulfridge. This rebellion is reputedly led by a fierce warrior who defeated the army of one of King William's best knights and killed the knight, Sir Simon. Wulfridge is a well-defended castle, but Luc finds a way to storm it. He is stunned to discover the leader is nothing more than a young boy, and even more surprised when he removes the boy's helmet to find a woman...with her dagger at his throat! Luc has quite a challenge on his hands to try to tame Caera (pronounced keera) and her pet white wolf, Sheba. THE VOW is full of adventure, treason and treachery, but it is also a revealing, sensual story about a love between two people with painful pasts. I highly recommend it. ~Carol C. (angelca@ibm.net)
Garnett, Juliana - VOW, THE (Bantam - 1998) (3)
I'd heard nothing but raves about this book, but I was disappointed. I thought it got bogged down with too much war strategy and politics. Also, the hero and heroine had a hate/desire relationship throughout a big portion of the story (he takes over her castle and she becomes his property, then she fights back). The author also did something awful to the heroine's pet wolf that almost caused me to toss the book away unfinished. This wasn't a bad book—I've surely read worse, but I did a lot of skimming. THE VOW was very sensual, but most of it was based on need rather than love. I did like the hero (although he was alpha in the extreme), and the heroine was likable—she was most definitely this hero's match. ~Laurie S. (shallah@empire.net)
Garrett, Annie - AFTER YOU (St. Martin's HC - 1998) (4+)
When she was seventeen, her mother was dying from cancer. To ease Clare McClendon's personal pain of seeing her mom slowly disintegrate, she was sent to Maine. There she met fisherman Riley Brackett and the twosome shared a heated summer romance. Both went on with their separate lives. In the ensuing seventeen years, Clare marries and becomes a successful broadcaster. However, she feels adrift because her spouse is fully occupied with his mother's fight with cancer.
A postcard arrives informing Clare that Riley suffered a head injury during a boating accident. His only memory is of the summer of love he spent with her. His wife pleads with Clare to come to Maine and visit Riley in order to help him through his amnesia. Reluctantly, she travels to Maine, not knowing what to expect.
Tissue manufacturers will make a fortune once AFTER YOU is released to the public even as the Lorax, speaking for the trees, will complain that the story line has too many tear jerking incidents. One emotional wringing crisis after another is confronted by the characters, leaving readers eventually running out of emotional energy. Annie Garrett demonstrates that she is a talented writer of sentimental romance novels. However, there is a limited number of tears in an audience's ducts. A bit of comic or other kind of relief would have made this well-written novel into a superb tale. ~Harriet Klausner
Garrod, René J. - HER HEART'S DESIRE (Zebra - 1994) (4)
This book is a HOOT! Ella Singleton's four younger sisters can't marry before she does, so when Ella seems destined for spinsterhood, the sisters take matters into their own hands and kidnap the ideal man for her. Grandma Jo joins in the high jinks, wanting to get her oldest granddaughter hitched to the handsome Easterner, Sam Carrigan. The only problem is...everyone thinks they're perfect for each other, except Ella and Sam. With lots of down-home humor and heartwarming romance, HER HEART'S DESIRE is an utter delight. ~June F. (bookbug@oocities.com)
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