Sonnet, $6.50, ISBN 0-743-40355-X
Historical Romance, 2000

To enjoy Starlight, a reader has to love cutesy cats and to adore heroines who see the world through a haze of stars and glittery moons.

Me, I have lost count of the moment I cringe at one of many of Cora MacGillivray’s overly sweet Care Bear moments. If I don’t get another goosebumps attack, it’ll be not a moment too soon.

Cora MacGillivray is in trouble. Her own Scots clan consider her a traitor (because she isn’t named Caitlin?), the British considers her a traitor, and our heroine is on the run. Does that make her a wary, streetwise woman? Don’t bet on it.

When her kitty Starlight goes missing, she finds it with Alexander Fairbourne – an American in England. It’s love (for her) at first sight. She dreams of Alex, sees him in the face of every man. When she sees a British soldier walking past, she screams and buries her comely face in Alex’s brawny seafaring shoulders. “Please teach me to be brave!” she screams.

Gag.

And so our heroine goes. She cries over the pain others around her feel. She understands. She is definitely the Earth Mother of Good Karma, and if this is real life, I’d be asking her what she’s on, out of intellectual curiosity, of course. Cora is oblivious to anything and everything, burying her head in Alex’s manly shoulders when reality beckons too hard. Alex would then play Daddy figure, waving all evil away so that Blissful Cora can continue running in her private garden of beautiful butterflies and lovey dovey-ness without any bad feelings to mar her thoughts.

I wonder if I can bottle up whatever she’s taking on the sly. Bet I can make a killing in the pharmaceutical black market.