Heaven Scent, another good book

Life gets so busy there's no time left over for things like keeping my blogsite bursting with news, comments, and fun things.  Sorry.  I have done a fair amount of reading lately, and want to pass along my reactions to another good read. The title intrigued me, and I had to find out why.  I've never heard or read about how heaven smells. I'm pretty dense on some things, but as I think of it, I suspect that maybe it's not only sight and sound and touch that identifies things, or people, but most of us, even babies, also smell.  If someone also wears one favorite perfume, or scented lotion, that's clinches identity, since perfume doesn't smell the same on everybody.  As far as that goes, every body oder could be as different as a fingerprint.  So, I had to read to find out.  It was worth the search. 

HEAVEN SCENT

            Rebecca Cornish Talley  *  *  *  *

Liza Compton remembers a great life with her younger brother and parents, before her father became a law partner in a new firm, moved the family to an expensive home in stylish Aldrich Heights for Liza’s senior year in high school.  Though her mother defended her father’s transfer of loyalty from his family to his work, everything seems to be going downhill for Liza, except for basketball.  She loves the sport her father taught her, the only thing wherein she feels in control.  She makes the last two free-throws to win the state championship for her team, but is still devastated because her father breaks his promise to be there for the game.  Again, his law practice is more important. 

            Kyle Reynolds, is Liza’s only friend outside her basketball teammates.  He is Mormon, and invites Liza to a ward luau to which she must come if he beats her in a one-on-one game of basketball.  He wins.  Things should be getting better, but they don’t, until Liza seems to have lost everything in her life that had any importance.

            Liza’s father comes across to me as merely a shadow of a man.  I fully accepted his devotion to his law practice, because I had been so startled by friendly warning one speaker gave at my own son Wayne’s graduation from ASU’s law school. He claimed legal work and research can easily become so fascinating and demanding that it consumes the whole being to the exclusion of family.  Only constant self control gets a good lawyer home to spouse, children, and life outside the office or court room.  I got the impression this speaker believed law was the only profession  quite so enchanting. 

Nevertheless, Liza’s father’s actions and comments seem too terse and repetitive to arouse any feeling for him as a person, until after tragedy changes his actions.  Even then, he claims his withdrawal from the family is evidence of his love and caring.

            Still, this book kept me awake all night, until I finished it.  I’d just like to have been shown more body language along with the father’s defenses, especially in the early part, which would make him more than just a paper father.  But maybe that’s just me.

 I highly recommend this as a good book.

Good reading from a good friend

ILLUMINATIONS OF THE HEART

            Joyce DiPastena   * * * * *

Joyce’s second historical romance novel, set in 1179, uses characters who played secondary roles in Loyalty’s Web to carry the plot forward into new dimensions.  Siri de Calendri arrives from Italy where her dying brother had liquidized their entire estate and sent her to the trusted friend he had made while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. She brings a sealed document making her Triston’s ward.  The complicating factor is that Siri looks amazingly identical to Triston’s dead wife, Clothilde. 

DePastena weaves a thrilling tale of swashbuckling sword fights, sweet love scenes, and political intrigue.  An understanding that could have been a satisfying ending occurs a hundred or more pages before Triston and Siri finally battle their way through several challenging complications to more complete fruition.  

DiPastena's  ability to sketch realistic backdrops as grounding to depict strong yet tender emotions, shows with enchanting clarity. For instance, she has Triston idly pick a ripe peach in the garden as he converses with Siri.  He first caresses the fruit, then grasps it, increases the pressure until he finally hurls it to smash against the garden wall, a realistic barometer to his rising emotions.

I look forward to hearing more of Triston's frustrating, yet charming, young cousin who aspires to be a knight and seems to be readying for a leading role in a third novel.

This is a very good read, to which I give my highest praise of five stars.