"Science fiction futuristic suspense--not your standard romance"

"It's not your standard romance," she told me -- and she was right! But a delightful indulgence nonetheless. It may start slow, but it spins rapidly through an unusual plotline to an unexpected finish.

It is the year 2042, and young doctor Bridget O'Keefe has agreed to do a three year stint in a backwater town in North Carolina to pay off her med school debt. She makes friends with an oddball native of the area, one Lilith Harker. Lilith befriends Bridget for some reason, which astounds the other locals, since Lilith is generally not one to hang around town chatting people up. There is a great deal of mystery in this old southern swamp, and the Harkers seem to be the root cause of it, by gum.

Lilith's brothers are more than happy to attend to Bridget's needs, and each have a special quality about them. The sensitivity they possess is one that Bridget herself also has, but undeveloped to the degree the mysterious Harkers all have. This becomes a bond, and ultimately the source of the covenant, between them all.

Though set in the future, there is marginally little that has radically changed in this small town of Lacrimas; the reader is mercifully spared the plethora of gizmos and whiz- bangs normally provided as decor in other futuristic stories. The characters are well developed and racially diverse, the detail of the landscape is rich, and the story is cross-generational.

The first half of the book ambles lazily through the development of the mystery and action, reflecting a true Southern sensibility. The second half is where the plot and action really take off into an intriguing web involving blood DNA, murder attempts, superhuman feats, and old wives' tales of creature sightings in the marsh. Bridget is able to blend her modern approach to medicine with the strange truths she discovers and develops a love relationship on a completely new level of consciousness. The complex relationship she winds up with was certainly more that I thought she would ever be able to manage!

At first, it looks like Bridget's love interest will be Kurt, who spends his days writing big checks and mooning over Lilith (who ignores him). But no, she doesn't turn his head and live HEA with him. OK, who else could it be? Shiloh, the younger brother? Maybe, but by page 65, there's no hubba hubba yet. Then Nathaniel looks like he might be the one. Things start heating up, and there's plenty of connection as you go along from here. But as she says, it is not your standard romance; though the story works fine, word to your mama: with the exception to the last few pages, there is en-oh ess-eee-ex!

Reviewed by Dana Dietrick
Courtesy Sensual Romance Reviews
Posted November 21, 2003

Summary

BRIDGET O'KEEFE has her entire life planned down to the last detail. She'll complete a three-year contract with the small town of Lacrimas, North Carolina and wipe out the enormous school debts she incurred to become a physician. Afterwards, she'll have her pick of any genetics lab in the country for full time research. She doesn't need any personal entanglements with the Harkers, a strange and reclusive family who own a thirty-mile section of swampland near Lacrimas.

Little by little, they pull her into their lives and into a mystery that stretches back to the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island and the mists of prehistory where myths and legends walked hand in hand with humanity.