Rosemary Rogers, Return to Me

Return to Me

Rosemary Rogers

Mira, Dec 2003, $7.50, 400 pp.

ISBN: 1551667487

At the beginning of the American Civil War, Jackson Logan met and married Mississippian Cameron. They relocate to the DC area, but he serves as a Union spy so is rarely home.

With the war finally over, Cameron looks forward to seeing her spouse and informing him that he will soon be a father for the first time. However, though the formal hostilities ended, Secretary of State Seward, recovering from the bullet he took during the Lincoln assassination, believes otherwise. Seward assigns Jackson to end the horror of Thompson's Raiders causing death and havoc in the south. Cameron is upset that her beloved will continue to be away for extended stretches, but even more disconcerting is the debate over where to live. He wants to remain by the Chesapeake while she wants to go home to Mississippi. Unable to compromise, Cameron leaves so that her child can be born on southern soil. A worried Jackson gives chase, but may arrive too late to keep his spouse safe from terrorists including the man Seward wants him to stop.

Though there is some initial confusion over when Jackson last came home, fans will appreciate this deep Americana historical romance. The story line is very powerful as the horrors of war are brought home to the audience through the innocent eyes of a stunned Cameron. Though her naivety in what Sherman and his troops did to her old south seems odd, Cameron is a steel magnolia, an essence that Jackson recognizes almost too late in the woman he cherishes above all else, even more than Seward's orders. Rosemary Roger's refreshing read will please sub-genre fans enormously.

Harriet Klausner