(ISBN: 0-8217-7756-4)
Also included in
4th of July Picnic from Zebra:
Peace
of Mind
by Pat Pritchard
The
Magical Elixer
by Tracy Cozzens
Read an
excerpt from
The Four-Leaf Clover
|
|
The
Four-Leaf Clover
(Included
in Zebra's 4th of
July Picnic anthology)
Lucky--that's
how Norman Sterling felt when he fell in love with beautiful Mildred
Gresham. And the four-leaf clover he just found by their Fourth
of July picnic blanket is a sign that their love was meant to
be. He's waited six long years to propose and he won't wait a
second longer...
REVIEWS
"Cheryl Bolen's Four-leaf Clover is too adorable for
words."
By Mrs. Giggles
Set in the late nineteenth century, 4th Of July Picnic tells the stories of people falling in love during the Independence Day celebrations in Peace, Missouri. This is a very short anthology and therefore, the stories won't make too much of an impact as they are like those small bite-sized chocolate chip cookies people buy to shut up their kids during the long journeys across the country during the holidays. The stories won't change any reader's life but I really like Cheryl Bolen's story...
Cheryl Bolen's Four-leaf Clover is too adorable for words. The mayor, Norman Sterling, has always been in love with Mildred Gresham for six years and counting but all sorts of circumstances prevent him from ever telling her how he feels about him. Mildred loves him too but she never says a word because he never does. This 4th of July, Norman is finally free to court Mildred but even when they are both finally free to get the fireworks going, things are never easy in love. Misunderstandings galore usually make this kind of stories painful but Norman is a too-cute hero whose unabashed, open adoration of Mildred is oh-so-romantic. How can I resist a man who tells the woman he loves, "As my wife, you will be cherished" and that's even after a few clumsy, nervous stammerings because he was still the shy kid inside despite his tough-rich-guy exterior? Mildred is a more stereotypical nitwit character but I'm sure these idiot heroines are not going away anytime soon so I may as well suffer her presence.
"Plenty of sensuality, a fast-paced
story... and a true sense of the historical time period."
By
Paulette Heidbreder
PAL Review
Fans of Cheryl Bolen will notice she’s
tried her hand at something new with her latest effort, “The Four-Leaf
Clover,” a novella appearing in the collection Fourth
of July Picnic out this month from Zebra.
For one, instead of her usual settings in Regency
England, she starts us at a Fourth-of-July picnic in post-Civil War
Missouri. But don’t think
that the shorter format means Cheryl has short-changed her readers on
the elements they’ve come to love in a classical Bolen read:
plenty of sensuality, a fast-paced story, the everyday tug-of-war
between husband and wife, and a true sense of the historical time
period.
Norman Sterling, the town of Peace’s reticent
mayor and a budding state leader, considers himself the luckiest guy in
the world when Millie Gresham agrees to marry him.
In honor of the occasion, he gifts his bride-to-be a four-leaf
clover.
After the wedding, Millie, a daughter of the South,
is thrilled by her new husband’s loving attentions. In fact, their married life is so blissful, Millie’s only
trouble is learning to share Norman with all of his community
responsibilities. The ups
and downs of Norman and Millie’s marriage parallel those of so many 21st
Century marriages where couples have to juggle family, career and love
lives. Norman and Millie’s mutual regard for one another helps
them endure and ultimately saves their marriage when, through their own
good intentions, they create the obstacles that threaten to tear apart
their paradise in Peace.
This one is a fun read and will keep you smiling as
the naïve Millie learns to please her husband and the reticent Norman
learns to speak his feelings to his energetic young wife. It also will show you why Cheryl’s last book, An
Improper Proposal, was a sell-out.
Cheryl’s novella is the middle story in a trio.
Picnic features “Peace of Mind” by Pat Pritchard and “The
Magical Elixir” by Tracy Cozzens.
Pick it up for a fun summer read.
|
