Avon, $5.99, ISBN 0-380-79887-5
Paranormal Romance, 1999

I must admit I’ve a weak spot for quiet intellectuals, right there alongside Godiva chocolates and all types of dogs. Give me a guy in glasses quoting Shakespeare or the theory of relativity and I’ll gladly dump that bad boy on the Harley anytime. Now, the reason I’m embarrassing myself telling everybody this is because reading this book by Mary Alice Kruesi makes me feel as if I’m in my youth again, gazing up at the stars and dreaming of Cary Grant in shining armor.

To call Second Star to the Right magical and wonderful is an understatement. This book is definitely for anyone who has ever believed in magic. Ms Kruesi has cleverly blended the story of Peter Pan with the story of a burnt-out, jaded woman meeting an idealistic man who helps her to find some color in her life again. It is also the story of her two children, lonely and lost, who discover the magic that is childhood with the help of the eccentric old woman who live upstairs. All these stories blend into one truly heartwarming tale that has me crying and laughing and truly falling in love with every single character in this book.

Our heroine is Faye O’Neill who is fleeing her past and abusive ex to start a new life in London with her children. She is a bit tense and very jaded with life at first, and there are times when I want to tell her to loosen up a little. Such as when she refuses to let her kids keep a dog. Not keeping a dog? That’s a crime in my book! Anyway, I digress. Jack Graham, physicist extraordinaire is their neighbor. He is an orphan haunted by the missing six years of his life, which he couldn’t remember. Another neighbor is a reclusive old lady named Wendy who claims to be Wendy Darling, the same one from Peter Pan.

This book has no villain, no missing jewel, no kidnappers. Just a magical tale of a woman and her children discovering some magic in their life, a man finding his own soul and his heart’s true love, and an adorable old lady whose simple, loving nature brought love and laughter to the lives of the people around her.

True, some parts of this book requires one to accept some extraordinary circumstantial happenings, like Jack renting the place of the only person who knew some things about his mysterious past, but then again, this book is about magic and destiny.

This book has poetry, magic, and romance. Reading it has been a wonderful uplifting experience. If the author’s other books are as enchanting as this one, I probably can cut down on caffeine and save up for a trip to London.