Legacy

August 2, 2010
Steel (Big Girl) rebounds from a string of less than stellar books with this inspiring story about a frustrated woman who rediscovers her passion for life during a genealogical quest. After Brigitte Nicholson loses her archeologist boyfriend and her university admissions office job in the span of two days, she agrees to help her mother do some research for a family history project. Brigitte becomes hooked after she discovers a mystery in their family's past: how did a Dakota Sioux princess end up buried in Brittany as a noblewoman alongside a distant relative? Brigitte's quest to learn the story of the Marquise de Margerac (née Wachiwi) takes her from Salt Lake City to Sioux Falls, S.D., and eventually to Paris, where she meets Marc Henri, a fetching Sorbonne literature professor. Steel splices in passages from Wachiwi's life—abduction by a Crow war party, traveling to France, surviving the French Revolution—to create a doubly absorbing romantic adventure.

August 15, 2010

In Steel's latest romance (Family Ties, 2010, etc.), a restrained anthropologist discovers her wild side while researching the life of a beautiful 18th-century Sioux Indian.

At 38, Brigitte is satisfied with life. She has an undemanding job in admissions at Boston University (where she is leisurely pursuing her doctorate); she has a comfortable relationship with archeology professor Ted; and her book on women's suffrage will be finished...oh, someday. Then life interrupts Brigitte's sleepy existence: Ted, going on a dig in Egypt, breaks up with her; B.U. replaces her with a new computer program; and suddenly the book she's been working on for years seems pointless. Despairing all her lost opportunities (wasted time with Ted, dead-end job and that stupid book about women's rights!) and that she may never have a family, she seeks comfort from her mother in New York. Her mother, an amateur genealogist working on their family tree, is at a dead end and persuades Brigitte to help. Their family traces their ancestors to 18th-century French aristocracy, but there are holes to be filled. Brigitte goes to the Mormon library in Salt Lake City and discovers not only an ancestral surprise, but a new direction for her life. It seems that their ancestor, the Marquis de Margerac, was married to a Sioux named Wachiwi. Finding out how she got from the Dakotas to the France of Louis XVI turns bland Brigitte into an adventurer as she follows the research trail to Paris and Brittany and meets Marc, a smart, dashing writer who helps with her research. Half of the novel belongs to Wachiwi, as she is kidnapped from her tribe, as she meets explorer Jean de Margerac and as he takes her back to France, where she eventually marries his brother. All this inspires Brigitte to write about Wachiwi and maybe move to Paris and allow herself to fall in love.

The two women's stories are compelling—if only they weren't weighted down by clichés and artless exposition.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2010
An anthropologist and an admissions officer at Boston University, Brigette is having a streak of bad luck. First, her archaeologist boyfriend of six years announces that hes finally gotten his own dig in Egypt and theres no place for her there. Then she loses her job. At loose ends, Brigette goes home to her mother, who is zealously pursuing her familys genealogy. Brigette has no interest in her ancestors, but since she has nothing else to do, she agrees to help her mom with the research, and what Brigette finds out about their past changes the course of her life. Fascinated by Wachiwi, the Crow princess who married the French marquis, Brigette heads off to France to seek firsthand information about her illustrious forebears. In typical Steel fashion, two women in two different time periods each have first loves that end in disaster, but the women become stronger as a result of their loss. Steel pairs the engrossing, exciting chronicle of Wachiwi, a brave and powerful nineteenth-century woman, with Brigettes more circumspect tale of a modern woman who finds the courage to change because of Wachiwis example in a novel that is sure to be a hit with a broad array of readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

August 15, 2010

In Steel's latest romance (Family Ties, 2010, etc.), a restrained anthropologist discovers her wild side while researching the life of a beautiful 18th-century Sioux Indian.

At 38, Brigitte is satisfied with life. She has an undemanding job in admissions at Boston University (where she is leisurely pursuing her doctorate); she has a comfortable relationship with archeology professor Ted; and her book on women's suffrage will be finished...oh, someday. Then life interrupts Brigitte's sleepy existence: Ted, going on a dig in Egypt, breaks up with her; B.U. replaces her with a new computer program; and suddenly the book she's been working on for years seems pointless. Despairing all her lost opportunities (wasted time with Ted, dead-end job and that stupid book about women's rights!) and that she may never have a family, she seeks comfort from her mother in New York. Her mother, an amateur genealogist working on their family tree, is at a dead end and persuades Brigitte to help. Their family traces their ancestors to 18th-century French aristocracy, but there are holes to be filled. Brigitte goes to the Mormon library in Salt Lake City and discovers not only an ancestral surprise, but a new direction for her life. It seems that their ancestor, the Marquis de Margerac, was married to a Sioux named Wachiwi. Finding out how she got from the Dakotas to the France of Louis XVI turns bland Brigitte into an adventurer as she follows the research trail to Paris and Brittany and meets Marc, a smart, dashing writer who helps with her research. Half of the novel belongs to Wachiwi, as she is kidnapped from her tribe, as she meets explorer Jean de Margerac and as he takes her back to France, where she eventually marries his brother. All this inspires Brigitte to write about Wachiwi and maybe move to Paris and allow herself to fall in love.

The two women's stories are compelling--if only they weren't weighted down by clich�s and artless exposition.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)