Deborah Wood - Clippings and Reviews

The following is taken from the Statesman Journal, Salem, OR, Sunday, April 28, 1996. A review done by Dan Hays.

"Deborah Wood creates compelling characters and stories with a healthy dose of passion."

Despite her widowhood, Maggie Foster had made a happy life for herself in 1861 Oregon. She ran her deceased husband's steamboat on the Willamette River. Passion and family were the farthest things from her mind.

So when a childhood friend of hers appeared out of the blue - now achingly handsome - with her orphaned nephew in tow, Maggie wasn't ready for the changes. Nor was she ready for the great flood that was about to change lives in the Willamette Valley.

Yes, it's a romance novel - but one with a difference, Deborah Wood's "Maggie's Pride" is the work of an author who has mastered her chosen genre and who knows how to blend historical fact into her narrative with ease.

Wood, also knows how to create interesting characters. Maggie, for instance, is a woman in a man's trade in a frontier land. She is tough and resourceful. She wears men's trousers under her skirts for practicality, but even as a girl she preferred trousers; they made it easier to run and play.

These facts are important, as "Maggie's Pride" is more character-driven than standard romances. The book works because readers can believe in Maggie, appreciate her situation.

And because, despite the highly unusual profession Maggie is in, this is a realistic story. The reader shares Maggie's reluctance to change her life radically by taking in her nephew, shares her pride in her boat, shares her excitement for her life as it is.

The reader also shares the intimate portion of Maggie's life as she finds herself giving way to a passion she didn't know she was capable of. This isn't an "innocent" romance novel. What happens to Maggie wouldn't be believable if she didn't have the yearnings of a mature woman, and Wood doesn't deal in discrete "fade outs."

Wood also has a knack for developing an interesting story and creating a consistent setting. The mood of the story shifts with the currents and changes of the river, expertly carrying the reader along. So when the book reaches a strong finale in the tragedy of the 1861 flood, the reader cares about what happens.

This is not an exploitive book; it was on Jove's presses before the 1996 flood. In other words, Wood wasn't trying to take advantage of recent tragedy when she wrote her description of the raging Willamette. She was merely doing something she is very good at; creating a realistic situation set in territory she knows firsthand.

Wood has set other books in Oregon. Her 1995 "Heart's Song" (from Diamond, en earlier Berkley imprint) takes place in and around an Oregon coastal lighthouse. Its basic premise is more than somewhat similar to "Maggie's Pride," but "Heart's Song" goes in different directions. It should still be available in many stores. Like many writers in her particular area, Wood uses more than one name on her books. In one sense, her name changes with the series. "Maggie's Pride" and "Heart's Song" are part of Berkley's "Homespun Romances," a series celebrating, as the publishers put it, "love and family in the heartland of America." The heartland they are talking about isn't the traditional Midwest - it is small-town America, wherever the town might be.

Wood uses the name Deborah Lawrence on her next book. "Humble Pie" will be published in July (which means it will probably be available in stores in June) as part of Jove's "Our Town" series. These books, as the series title suggests, center on life in a vividly evoked town. In the case of "Humble Pie," the town is Moose Gulch, Mont., and the central character is the daughter of a notorious outlaw who finds herself falling for the sheriff.

Wood's writing style isn't simplistic. Her intent is simple storytelling (which, of course, isn't a simple thing at all), but she is careful to match her prose to her audience. There is no pretension in her style, no hidden meanings. Her approach is frank and descriptive.

In other words, Deborah Wood writes romances for readers who like things to seem real. "Maggie's Pride" will thrill readers of romance, and those who enjoy adventure books might give it a try.

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