Title: Beltane Fire
Author: Jane Toombs
Genre: Time-Travel Romance
Published in April 2005 by New Concepts Publishing
IBSN: N/A
At forty-one Damara Ruskin has a choice whether transfer to Dallas and continue working for the new owners or stay where she is at and retire. Damara opted to retire but still does not know what she wants to do with her time.
Damara’s young friend Chelsea hounds her to no end about joining the Beltane celebration on the first of May. She isn’t very interested since her friends Terry and Sal are into Celtic traditions to which she is not. But because they were her friends, she goes anyway since May first is her birthday. When she gets there she finds another who does not share their hosts’ enthusiasm for the celebration. Damara tries to refuse the invitation to dance around the maypole only to be hauled by the hand by Chelsea to join in on the fertility celebration.
Shoner Trivent is a catamaran enthusiast whose birthday is on May first. His parents call him from where they are vacationing at to wish him a happy birthday and for his mother to wonder where the years had gone. Of course he rolls his eyes at the comment, gets irritated with his present situation and tosses an invitation for some sort of fertility celebration in the garbage.
Shoner’s catamaran is in for repairs, a scheduled fishing trip is cancelled and he is turning forty-seven. He is invited to the May first Beltane celebration which falls on his forty-seventh birthday. At first he wasn’t interested but then thought better, fishing the invitation out of the garbage can and figures that it would be something to do on that day. He watches dispassionately as the celebrants are invited to dance around the maypole and refuses when he invited to dance the dance of fertility with everyone present.
Jane Toombs weaves a tale of the present day life with what seems like a parallel fantasy life, where Damara Ruskin and Shoner Trivent’s lives and chance meeting parallel the Goddess of Flora Damia and the God of the Sea Shonet. Or was it a chance meeting? Beltane Fire starts out like any other romance novel with the heroine’s life changing drastically and something happens to change it, as with the hero’s. During the beginning of the celebration they were all warned against looking back. What did that have to do with the celebration? What do Beltane and the fertility dance have to do with them? What are the Old Ones’ intentions in regards to them? You’ll just have to read the book and find out!
Beltane Fire weaves an interesting tale of the past and present lives of two people who are destined by fate, or the gods, to meet. Damara looks at Shoner as she is being dragged to the maypole by her friend, and is unsettled by her observance. Damara notices Shoner will not, or may not help her, and seems uninterested in her predicament. Is it true or is he just fighting an undeniable attraction? Beltane Fire, written by Jane Toombs can be found at New Concepts Publishing.
Good reading,
lynne
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