Fly Away Home, by Jennifer Weiner (2010)

Jennifer Weiner's latest book certainly captures a recent trend in U.S. politics! For all those politicians who get caught cheating on their wives, there is a wife whose life is shattered by the betrayal. Many married men (and women) cheat on their spouses, but not all spouses suffer the consequences on national press and television.

In "Fly Away Home," we are given a wonderful portrayal a family coping with just such a situation. Senator Richard Woodruff gets caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar! His wife, Sylvie, has spent her entire marriage, being the quintessential politician's wife. She organizes her life around his political needs, even at the expense of her daughter's lives.

The Senator's daughters have each coped with an absent father in their own way: the elder, Diana, is a workaholic perfectionist who finds herself in a lustful relationship of adultery with one of her students. The younger daughter, Lizzie, is trying to recover from a decade of alcohol abuse. Both daughters feel neglected by their father for his busy political career and abandoned by their mother who gave all her attention to the needs of the political machine.

But Sylvie and her daughters have to deal with the fallout of a husband and father who has broken the rules. Can Sylvie forgive her husband? Can she reconcile with her daughters? Give this book a read and find out. It will draw you in and the ending may surprise you!

Time's Legacy, by Barbara Erskine (2010)

Fans of Barbara Erskine can look forward to a good read with her latest title, Time's Legacy. I had been a bit disappointed with her previous release, Warrior's Princess, which, to my mind, seemed a bit stilted and contrived at times. But, in Time's Legacy, Barbara recaptures her smooth storytelling style, weaving us back and forth between the past and the present.

As in Warrior's Princess, we are once again in present-day England, and we are also, once again, in the past, around the time of Jesus. This time, there are three psychic links between ancient and modern times. Abi Rutherford, a young curate assigned to a small church in eastern England, has always known she has a "sensitivity" for ghosts and spirits. Kieran Scott, her new boss, and senior priest in the area also has psychic abilities but is trying his best to bury them within a strict regime of Christian doctrine and dogma. The third psychic link is Justin Cavendish, a modern-day druid whose powers to roam in the past may help all three psychics survive the ordeal awaiting them.

As the story opens, Abi is sent to her new post in St. Johns, Cambridgeshire, and her new boss, Kieran Scott. A romantic attraction blossoms quickly, but things do not go smoothly for the pair. Struggles at her new position are exacerbated by the sudden illness of her mother. When her mother gives her a secret gift of an unusual crystal, Abi's life begins to unravel and her sensitivity to ghosts increases beyond her wildest imagination. Soon she finds herself watching slices of the past, a time when the Roman presence in England was still small and druids were the healers and the religious leaders. Abi is brought into the life of one of the druid priestesses, Mora, and her apprenctice from the East of the Empire, Yeshua. Yeshua is no ordinary apprentice, his ability to heal with the touch of his hands is very different than the herbal medicine that Mora knows. Yeshua's claim to follow one god is foreign to the myriad of gods and goddesses that Mora follows as a druid.

As Abi witnesses the events from two thousand years ago, she is drawn into the lives of Yeshua and Mora and when their lives are endangered by a Roman solider, Abi wants to help but doesn't know how.

Barbara Erskine has done a commendable job blending fiction with mystery, and blending the past with the present. I hope other readers enjoy this title as much as I did.