pdf  format
ISBN:  0-9679076-8-3
By:  Diane Jonzell
Published by  E-Pub2000, copyrighted 2000
http://www.booklocker.com
157 pages $7.98
 

    I had daydreamed about this meeting.  Not that this was going to turn into any
kind of love thing because that's not where my head was at, but a true friendship.  Still, I pictured there would be an initial adjustment time.  How was I going to recognize him?  People don't always look like their pictures.  Maybe he wouldn't recognize me either.  I'd have to look at every person who got off the plane to make sure I didn't miss him.

     The waiting area was filling up.  I glanced at my watch and saw the arrival of flight 275 was almost upon me.  My hands were shaking slightly and I held them at my sides to force a stillness.  I took three deep breaths.  For a split second, I felt an urgency to run out of the airport and pretend this never happened, and then I shook my head, knowing what a horrible thing that would be to do to a man who obviously cared enough about meeting me to fly across United States.

      From the airport window, I saw the Boeing 747 taxi in and then the jetway was attached to the plane.  In a moment, the door would open.  I stood up to get a clear view.

     Passengers walked off the plane, one by one, all looking a bit worn from travel.  They were met with hugs and kisses.  Floods of people, but no one resembling Brent.  A then it struck me—I had the wrong flight—he missed his flight—something happened.  But people were still coming off the plane.

      At first all I saw was his hand holding a white rose bud, then I saw his smiling face.  He walked over to me, my feet were frozen.  He handed me the single, white rose, and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

     "Hi, Angel," he said.
 

     Ms Jonzell, has written a non traditional  romance and yet a romance truly fitting for the times we live in.  She breaks a writing taboo but does it with heart and feeling.  The reader is rewarded with a story of two lovers struggling to overcome the most impossible obstacles.

     Maile Winters works for an advertising agency;  twenty years ago her husband divorced her.   Since then, Maile has become harden, she considers herself a loner, independent and self sufficient.  She is of course all of these things, but she is something else too.  She’s lonely.  Still, Maile feels pretty darn secure in her world, which consist of work, and Internet chat rooms.  In the chat rooms, she is bold and backs down from no one.  Often, after a few glasses of wine, she has to take notes so that the next night she can remember to whom she owes an apologize, and why.

     Then she meets teacher Brent Nolan and her whole world changes, he’s different and there’s just something about him that Maile can’t quite put her finger on.    Like her, Brent  is lonely and he and Maile spend a lot of time at night chatting.  They become best friends.  With Brent, Maile feels safe, for one thing she lives in Alaska and he lives in Georgia, he’s easy to talk to, almost like an easy chair, and she finds herself telling him things she never discusses with anyone else.  Also, he is married and there’s no chance of anything serious developing between them.

      On Brent’s end he finds in Maile the love and understanding that has gone out of his marriage.  Brent doesn’t blame his wife, she is not the villain and he longs to recapture what they once had, but slowly comes to realize  it’s never to be regain.  He finds himself falling in love with Maile, the woman who has become his best friend.  One day he calls her and from that moment on he knows that his heart belongs to her.

     But Maile is struggling  with her own feelings.  She reasons, This relationship is wrong.  and Even if it does exist, after twenty years of being a loner would there be enough compromise to make it work?  When Brent flies to Alaska to visit her in the summer time, all barriers come down and the two of them can no longer deny their true feelings.  Shortly after he leaves she faces the biggest battle of her life, cervical cancer.

     I found this novel by a new and upcoming star to be rich in human emotion and spirit.  Ms Jonzell’s characters are real and warm.  Their plight is heart renting and you feel the hurts and heartache of  each of them.  The dialog is also real and easy to follow.  Another thing I liked about this novel was Ms Jonzell’s treatment of Brent’s problem marriage, she was both kind an gentle; a refreshing change from the norm.

     I am told that this book will be available through booklocker.com by the 19th of September, 2000.  I highly recommend it.

Jonathan David Masters
Reviewer
www.booktrees.com