"I found it spooky but intriguing, sharing a dream with a Viennese Opera Singer. Eager to have a peek at Phillipe Weintraub, I arrived at the opera early and waited with restless impatience for the performance to begin.
As soon as the curtain went up, the spine-tingling aha hit me. I looked at the young man with the dark curls playing Rodolfo and shivered with the sense of the uncanny. I felt I was looking at someone I knew, someone I'd been close to. I came out in goosebumps. Could this cockamamie story of reincarnation be true after all?
As soon as the curtain went up, the spine-tingling aha hit me. I looked at the young man with the dark curls playing Rodolfo and shivered with the sense of the uncanny. I felt I was looking at someone I knew, someone I'd been close to. I came out in goosebumps. Could this cockamamie story of reincarnation be true after all?
I have no idea who played the other roles that night. My gaze was glued on Rodolfo, and whenever he left the stage I waited for him to reappear. The thought kept going through my mind: I promised to wait for this man and I didn't wait. Now we are both alone in a different time and place ."
" Best reincarnation romance since "Somehwere in Time "--Marlie Moses, author of "The Transmogrification of Sydney Pellegrini.
World War II is finally over and woman's role in society has undergone a drastic change. Delia Eloise Kingsley confronts a new marriage with a man she does not love, while her cousin, Della "Weezy" Ward, pursues a writing career and eschews marriage and family. Delia's new husband, Bradley, treats her well--almost too well. She feels trapped. Delia wants an excuse to leave--even though it won't be easy--especially since her mother adores Bradley. Worse, Bradley is the "ideal" spouse, and Delia knows that trying to explain why she wants out of the marriage might prove impossible. But when Delia meets her dashing new folk dancing partner, she suddenly faces an unexpected choice. Weezy observes her cousin's dilemma with dismay and makes her own choice, which is considered unthinkable. She avoids marriage and allows a man to become her patron in order to pursue her career. But this route harbors unseen pitfalls, as well. Her patron is Jewish, and moreover, he's married.
Scroll down for more titles
Ashley Pennington had no idea what she might encounter when she began reading--under protest--the diaries and letters of her forebears. Of mixed race, and deeply resentful of it, Ashley felt their lives as white women couldn't possibly interest her. Yet she is soon caught up in surprising discoveries about the difficulties they faced in both their career paths and their love lives.
Ashley's own problems increase as she plunges headlong into a maelstrom of mixed-race torments with Kevin, the black man she wanted to love, and Doug, the white man she is determined not to love. The women of the past serve to steady her as she passes through a dark night of the soul and faces the hard choices about where she belongs.
Ashley's own problems increase as she plunges headlong into a maelstrom of mixed-race torments with Kevin, the black man she wanted to love, and Doug, the white man she is determined not to love. The women of the past serve to steady her as she passes through a dark night of the soul and faces the hard choices about where she belongs.
A story with two time-lines, "The Women of Stormland "links past and present in an inter-racial crisis as old as America and as contemporary as an Oprah Winfrey show.
In this continuing saga of the Langston/Kingsley family, Del struggles to protect her husband and children from a mother who can't forgive Del earlier divorce and seems determined to break up her daughter's marriage. Just when things seem as bad as they can be, Del's daughter makes an announcement that adds new tension to the stew-pot of problems. In recurring nightmares, Del drives but can't see the road ahead. Someone has curtained the windshield, she moves through heavy fog or a blinding snowstorm, or her headlights won't come on. Something has to be done about the situation ,but what?
Title: Dorothea in the Mirror: A Jill Szekely Mystery
Author: Lois Wells Santalo
Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin, Pacific Book Review
Lois Wells Santalo embellishes character development to a fine art in her novel, Dorothea in the Mirror: A Jill Szekely Mystery. With extraordinary skill, Santalo brings the reader into the post-war era of New York, in the predominately Jewish community comprised of refugees from the Nazi regimetakeover of Eastern Europe. She introduces and describes her characters with the conversational techniques so ever present in discussing people of that time and place. People then talked about a person by bringing into the picture their family, their profession or skill, and their age pursuant to goals of raising a family. Integrity and honesty of the Jewish immigrants were commonplace characteristics, and for a talented pianist, Zoltan Szekely to be the prime suspectof a murder, things didn't add up. However the evidence did. The unraveling of the mystery leads a path through events and clandestine motives, a journey including a psychic vision, and brings to life the sensations of a generation of people scared from the carnage overseas.
What struck me most impressively is Lois Santalo's clarity with her characters. Her talent as an author to bring her people to life, using superbly appropriate dialog, embellishing each with a sober background of where the person came from, made me truly believe in the reality of the characters. In fact, at times I thought she was writing about peopleshe knew and the story was real! That's how well she carried me into her book. Whereas many novels tend to rely on action, location, or even sex to maintain interest, I believe Lois Santalo's depth of character developmentis truly her forte. Her writing has more than intelligence; she interlaces wisdom throughout the pages. In the unpretentious lives of people renting rooms and sharing common areas, amidst the modesty of working people always on time and respectful of their roles, people back then barely filled their basic needs however kept their mental development unrestrained. Never yielding determination and adhering to their intrinsic values, her characters formed indelible memories in my mind. This may be the best compliment I can say about a book – something that makes me very pleased to have had the wonderful opportunity to get to know Lois Santalo through her writing of her fictional deceased character Dorothea, and all that followed in the wake of her murder.
For those who love mysteries, this book is a must. The classical assumptions of a police investigation are juxtaposed against the unique and unconventional characters resulting in a true page turner. Clad in a cover photo of a magnifying glass focusing on a corpse with a toe tag, implying a “Sherlock Holmes” type of thought provoking mystery, this artfully done work is a polished gem. Once you then begin to know Lois Wells Santalo, and learn of her cancer survival and love for writing, you thank heaven for her being able to achieve such a masterful accomplishment.
ext.
REVIEW OF PETOSKY STONES
In the time of Word War II, Petoskey Stones by Lois Wells Santalo is the remarkable story of newly married Delia Eloise Kingsley and her confrontation with Bradley, the man she married but doesn't love, but who treats her well. Petoskey Stones carries readers through this exceptionally well crafted novel of Delia's struggle with her mother and friends who cannot uinderstand her unhappiness and are unsupportive of her intentions to divorce a good man. Petoskey Stones is highly recommended for all readers searching for an intimately thoughtful and ultimately thought-provoking story of love, truth, and deceptive dilemma, and a storytelling author in Lois Santalo, whose entertaining narrative style is especially notable for her deft manipulation of the English language to engage the reader's total attention from first page to last.
.
