Riding the Thunder

In the magical, engrossing read, The Invasion of Falgannon Isle, my every emotion was engaged, from laughter to tears from beginning to end, as I followed the adventures and misadventures of wonderful characters I will never forget. I savored every delicious word of this one. Only how could an author top this? Macgillivray has done it with Riding the Thunder! In a very smart move, the author switched the locales, setting this Mershan-Montgomerie battle in Kentucky. There are mirrored themes: the Mershan brother out for vengeance; the quirky set of supporting characters; the sassy lady who refashions her corner of the world where people and happiness come ahead of big bucks. But switching the book to the Kentucky locale, permitted her to once again deliver a very fresh and original sequel, not a carbon copy of the first. Jago Mershan has come to Kentucky to claim the horse farm and small business that operates under the umbrella name The Windmill. While the horse farm is owned by Asha Montgomerie's family, she alone now owns the restaurant, drive-in, swim club and motel. Jago is unprepared for Asha. She comes from a very wealthy family, yet eschews those pretensions for her quiet everyday life running her businesses. She surrounds herself with the oddball people that are so charming, so real, they leap off the pages. And of course, there is the cat that seems to know more about romance and life than the people he adopts. From there, the story runs in parallel, Jago and Asha's love is woven with a haunting romance of doomed lovers from the past. I laughed. I cried. As with her previous books, I just didn't want the story to end. There is a thread of Liam and Netta's romance, left unresolved, so we hope to visit The Windmill again soon. It's a fresh, imaginative, emotional, sexy story that has you laughing out loud or shedding a tear over the lost love of Tommy and Laura. I highly recommend this excellent read by Deborah MacGillivray, and I can't wait for her next installment, and all those to follow! Having read this book right after reading her current historical romance In Her Bed, it only leaves me more impressed with the range of her talent.

Shortly after traveling to the west coast for pleasure, business took me to the east coast and more hours of long waits in planes and airports...a perfect setting for relishing Deborah MacGillvray's delightfully "toe-curling and hand-clapping (no matter where you are)" book Riding The Thunder. Already a card-carrying fan of Invasion of Falgannon Isle, I was completely blown away when I met Jago and Asha because they were so vividly different (and delicious) from their siblings in the Hebrides. MacGillvray has a wonderful ability to intertwine stories, history and locales...but never does she mix or water-down the characters or their eccentric sidekicks..or cats. Telling this intricately-choreographed tale, with a clock that turned forward and backward on a song, MacGillvray leads you to a perfect ending that wraps up not-so-perfect murder, deceit, revenge and sweet deception that tastes a bit like an iced Pepsi and a chilled Almond Joy. Hey Deborah, when are you going to write Netta and Liam's story???? (I'm intrigued)

Deborah MacGillivray's latest, Riding The Thunder, is a sheer delight to read if you remember the '60's... That's the early 60's, before Hippies and LSD, when young lovers danced to romantic tunes like "Tell Laura I Love Her"...which just happens to be the theme for this book. Lovers Tommy Grant and Laura Valmont were murdered in 1964 by the town bully of a small, tucked away spot in central Kentucky. When Asha Montgomerie, the new owner of The Windmill cafe, a place where Tommy and Laura loved to dance, takes over, she inherits a crazy jukebox that plays its own tunes. But it isn't until Jago Fitzgerald, the black-haired, green-eyed man that has been sent to buy her out, arrives do things get really interesting. To him, the small spot, complete with it's old-fashioned drive-in movie, is like Time stopped. The bully, Montague, Faulkner, recently released from a sanitarium, returns to the area, convinced that Laura and Tommy have returned as Asha and Jago. He's gotten away with murder before... But will the ghosts that linger, dancing the night away in the old diner, finally have revenge? An excellent read that will bring back memories of an era passed.

After his brother's successful INVASION OF FALGANNON ISLE, Jago Merschon heads to Kentucky to perform his part of avenging their father. His Montgomerie target is Asha Montgomerie, who owns a Kentucky motel. This makes it easy for Jago to go incognito as a developer temporarily renting one of her rooms. Asha is attracted to the outsider, but also fears him although she is not sure why. When she tells him about the ghosts that haunt her place, he scoffs at her. However, Jago is not ridiculing her when a local intimidating thug decides Asha will be his girl whether she wants to or not; instead he turns jealous and protective while the paranormal bully him to keep their hostess safe. Deborah MacGillivray is two for two with her Mershan brothers' avenger romances. RIDING THE THUNDER is a delightful fast-paced paranormal romantic suspense that hooks the audience once Jago arrives undercover in Kentucky. A second tale of love between the ghostly couple Tommy and Laura augments a fine contemporary with early 1960s nostalgia starting with Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her" and proving over four decades later that their love will never die. However, this M & M thriller belongs to the feuding Montgomerie-Merschon couple falling in love. Harriet Klausner

Though a sequel to Deborah Macgillivray's wonderful first novel "Invasion of Falgannon Isle," "Riding The Thunder" is one of those terrific and well-plotted stand-alones which gives the reader a wonderful taste of Clans Mershan and Montgomerie without going into direct repetition of what happened in the first novel. This time it is urbane, elegant, good-hearted and loyal Jago Mershan who finds himself confounded by and attracted to the personality, charm and strength of one Asha Montgomerie. Jago is sent to the middle of Kentucky by his brother and head of Trident Industries, Desmond Mershan, to try to convince Clan Montgomerie in Kentucky to part with various assets -- to whit, one horse farm run by brother Liam Montgomerie and The Windmill, an old-fashioned diner under the direction of the sensible yet sexy Asha Montgomerie. But The Windmill isn't just a quaint old diner in Nowheresville Kentucky. It's a Diner with a Past, featuring a jukebox that plays tunes on a whim even when unplugged, dancing spirits when the diner is closed and empty, and a booth that steps out of scene of "The Amityville Horror" whenever patrons sit in it after dark. Then there is the mysterious cat, "Whats-His-Name" who shows up and claims Jago as his own, worming into the masculine heart of that shrewd and urband businessman. If those things aren't crazy enough, Asha begins having weird visions when Jago enters the picture, and not all are the sexy, wanting-to-be-taken-by-Jago kind. Rather, Asha's visions center around two lovers, Tommy and Laura, who lived during the 1960s and were tragically killed in an auto accident. As she and Jago are drawn together, the visions become stronger, more intense -- and more frightening to both Asha, who experiences them, and Jago, who fears them. The great thing about Macgillivray's "series" novels is they get better with each release. When it comes to the backdrop, she made a brilliant decision moving the story across the Atlantic from Scotland to middle America. Within that scenario, the reader is treated to a wonderful blending of past and present, with both coming together in a moving climax. As for the characters, I fell in love with Jago, who struggles between his loyalty to brother Desmond and his growing love for Asha and her way of life. His motivations are crystal clear and his personality so well-drawn, he almost steps out of the book as a living human being. Asha, too, benefits from the careful touch of the author's imagination and writing style. She is a terrifically well-rounded character, applying her wry humor and common sense to many of the situations that occur throughout the book. As this is a Macgillivray tale, there are many interesting situations, many of which are good for laughter on the one hand and contemplation on the other. Furthermore, Asha and Jago together create sparks. The physical nature of their relationship is highly combustible, making their coming together intensely satisfying. But they s