Jove, $7.50, ISBN 0-515-12677-2
Paranormal Romance, 1999

I managed to read Jewels of the Sun in-between having the time of life sitting all day by the Loch Ness in Scotland. I was indulging an animal-crazy person who had somehow thought that he could be the one to document the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster. Fat chance. All we saw were friendly people who told us even a monster wouldn’t be crazy enough to surface at this time of the year.

Life at the moment is bliss and stress-free, which is why I could finish this book in my state of mind. Nothing happens at all in this book except for talk and happy visiting, and if I’m not where I am at the moment, I’d be suffering from rigor mortis by now.

The story is basically a mishmash of everything I’ve read in a Nora Roberts book. Jude Murray suffers from nervous breakdown and flees to Utopian Ireland to stay at Faerie Hill Cottage and study Irish folktales while rediscovering herself. Wonder if she’s good buddy with that woman from Enchanted. She meets hunk Adrian Gallagher, eldest of three beautiful siblings who run the local pub. He sees Jude, they talk about this ghost of Lady Gwen, the local tragic ghost, that they’d seen. Jude spends her time running around the cool, wonderful idyllic Ireland countryside singing songs from the The Sound of Music soundtrack. Or something like that, because all the characters actually do in this book is to sell me how wonderful a place Ireland is. These people must do the Irish Tourism Board damned proud.

The romance is tepid and rather tame because there’s little conflict to stop them from ripping each other’s clothes at first sight.

Which is why, since I’m also enjoying life at the moment, I can finish this book without snoozing. Besides, one needs something to do in-between freezing by a pond because some stupid monster is inconsiderate enough not to prove right that wacky theory that Nessie comes out only in winter.