Kelly Jones The Seventh Unicorn

The Seventh Unicorn

Kelly Jones

Berkley, Oct 2005, $7.99, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0425206254

Reverend Mother Superior Alvere sends a note to Madame Demy, Director of the, Cluny Museum in Paris, that states that the Convent of Saint Blandine is closing and before they do they need to "dispose" of their valuable medieval tapestries, linen, and manuscripts. The nuns hope to sell their collection in order to preserve their way of life. Demy sends her expert American born curator Alex Pellier to examine the treasures only to find the Mother Superior ill and others not quite as cooperative. A bit disappointed not to start, Alex spends time with the sun of her existence, her daughter Soliel.

Alex returns to the convent and finds two drawings that strongly imply a seventh Unicorn Tapestry exists; the Cluny possesses six. Needing assistance she hires her former art school lover Jake Bowman to help her track down the tapestry while promising the nuns to obtain best value for them if she finds it. As they search together, each knows that they work along side their true love, but she tried marriage once and that failed.

THE SEVENTH UNICORN is a remarkable contemporary romance due to the fascinating parallels between the tale of the tapestries and the life of the heroine. The intriguing story line allows the sexual tension to grow at the same time a melancholy exists as the end of several centuries of existence is coming because progress requires a hotel not a thirteenth century monastery at Saint Blandine. Fans will feel the varying emotions that make for a superb modern day romance with a nostalgic look at the heritage treasures including architecture that becomes extinct in the name of the economy.

Harriet Klausner