Fiesta Moon [Large Print]

Fiesta Moon takes you to a colorful Mexico where haciendas are haunted and superstitions abound. Corinne is an American with Mexican roots who is trying to help a local orphanage and find her biological family. Mark is an American businessman who doesn't put forth much effort to help anyone but himself. Linda Windsor develops these wonderful characters in such a way that you can imagine their pasts unfolding to motivate their current behavior. She weaves the romance throughout the story line - which is easy to do with such a romantic setting - in such a way that it warms the heart. I appreciate that her writing style is "hopeful romance" that avoids leading the reader to experience the disappointment of massive conflict between the romantic leads. This is a sweet, suspenseful love story that will leave you wanting more of these characters and this author.

This is book two in Linda Windsor's Moonstruck Series and my favorite. I enjoy reading about the rogues. That's reading about them, not living with them. I like my men a little more steady in real life. Mark Madison is the renegade of the Madison family. He's been sent to a remote Mexican village as a last chance to prove himself. Or as Mark puts it, his 'get out of jail card.'He's supposed to get the hacienda ready to open as an orphanage. But before he even gets to the hacienda he is adopted by a pig. Yep that's right, a pig falls in love with Mark. And if that isn't enough, he has a run-in with Corinne Diaz, who remembers him all too well. She's a volunteer at the orphanage and she isn't impressed by Mark Madison. But never underestimate the power of the Mexicalli Moon. Add a hidden treasure, a ghost, and a really bad villain and you have all the necessary ingredients for a fun filled, romantic, suspenseful book. Put Fiesta Moon on your want list. It's a good one.

After his third DUI, Mark Madison is overjoyed when his older, more responsible brother Blaine pulls some strings and offers him a Get-out-of-Jail-Free card by sending him to a minute Mexican village to oversee a building project for orphans. Mark, a 32-year-old single man who is permanently enjoying a life of fiesta, plans to make the most of this respite. But even the best-laid schemes can be and often are hijacked by circumstances, people, and most importantly, God. Even before arriving in Mexicalli, Mark has another car accident, and thus he enters this smallish town aback a truck of pigs smelling of swine and trying to shake off one that had become attached to his very person. Corinne Diaz, a 27-year-old with a heart for people --- especially those without family, since she was once orphaned and then adopted --- looks upon the newcomer with the pig in both confusion and amusement. Then, as the swine runs wild, such commotion and near disaster ensues that Corinne is momentarily distracted as she races to the rescue of an elderly woman on a runaway burro-bound cart. Mark, seeing impending catastrophe, rushes forward and brings the cart to a halt. It is after this heroic act that Corinne gets her first up close and personal look at him --- and her response is one of contempt. "We danced at your brother's wedding...just before you became sick on my shoes." With a sigh, Mark asks himself if his day could get any worse. Seemingly, Mark's reputation for living the high life cannot escape him. And yet, as the days pass --- those long, hot, never-getting-much-accomplished-South-of-the-border days --- Corinne and Mark find common ground in the oddities of the Mexican village. Their living conditions, the food, the help, even the social customs and the superstitions combine to make their conversations and humiliations more conducive to geniality and humor. While Mark attempts (often futilely) to get the orphanage into sound working order, Corinne's business savvy in working with the villagers helps the couple find further common ground --- but not without some injurious, cutting remarks, wounded emotions, and lots of inner reflecting. It seems that both are on a mission to erect a building and to tear down whatever ails the soul. Author Linda Windsor offers a humorous yet lightly romantic tale that gratefully is profuse in its subtle comedic style. Windsor's characters are likable because they're so real, and as their foibles are so honestly portrayed, readers will smile when they commiserate with their frequently self-inflicted emotional pain. With easy conversation, the author provides not simply a story to amuse and entertain, but also slips in some biblical principles on offering forgiveness, not judgment; grace instead of condemnation. Above all, female fans will embrace Windsor's message not to become wallowed in yesterday's failures, whether they be poor choices, wrong attitudes, or faulty preconceptions. Today is a new day to embrace hope an

At Madison Engineering, CEO Blaine Madison lectures his brother Mark for his third DUI offense. Tired of his sibling's shenanigans Blaine offers Mark a deal; if he brings in the hacienda contract on time and sober, he can take over the on-site management of their projects. Mark readily agrees as he wants to travel anyway while wondering why Blaine prefers to stay home with his wife and children. Corinne Diaz came to Mexicalli, seeking information on her biological mother at the last known place she lived. She works at the Hoger de los Ninos orphanage at the local orphanage when Mark arrives to take charge of the renovation project. Corinne thinks very little of the alcoholic hedonist though she is attracted to him. He wants her too, but hates the scorn in her eyes. Matchmaking them is a haunted piglet who adopted Mark as her pet. However, what begins to bring the two outsiders together besides a deep attraction is someone, perhaps a voodoo practitioner, who wants the project stopped and them out of town. Mark is an interesting character who all his compared unfavorably to his successful siblings, using charm with no substance to compete. However, Corinne, who initially write him off as a playboy with no core, begins to see little things in him based on his interactions with the children and his piglet; she encourages him and the underachiever begins to accomplish the mission. That Pygmalion Effect transition is the key to the inspirational romance FIESTA MOON; a fine Moonstruck tale filled with humor and a serious undercurrent that the locals believe is a voodoo curse on Mark while he deems that he is simply doing God's work. Harriet Klausner

Mark Madison is on a quest, one that will determine his destiny. Mark, the somewhat rebellious brother of Blaine, who is the shining star of the family and head of their business Madison Engineering, goes to Mexico to prove that he is not the loser he believes his family thinks he is. This is his last chance for redemption, will he succeed? His job is to convert a very rundown hacienda into an orphanage. That should not be to hard for him, but it becomes quite complicated when he faces witchcraft, corruption and comes face to face with the love of his life. They were factors he did not count on in his equation for success. In this work Ms. Windsor brings to remembrance the characters of Caroline and Blaine from book one of The Moonstruck Series, continuing on in the life of this family with brother Mark, in his trip to Mexico where Blaine and Caroline met and fell in love in book one. The author blends well the characters from book one into book two, giving just enough attention to them to continue to tie the books together; and she introduces some new and very colorful ones as well. She builds the story around the rebellious Mark, his struggle with personal strongholds in his life and the gentle workings of God to bring him into contact with situations and people who will help him to conquer the demons within. In this book, we enjoy a tad of humor, mystery and romance and we enjoy watching the workings of God through many diverse circumstances, Of course, to me, the best part is that we are left with the knowledge that with God all things are possible. A very enjoyable read, one that reminds us who really is in charge when we look to Him.