Unforgettable Lover: Worlds of Lemuria: Earth Colony (prequel)

SCI-FI/PARANORMAL:  Leonna has too many responsibilities.  She must carry the burden of supporting her entire family and put her own needs aside - the need to paint, and to love whom she wants.  The ceremony of Betram is her last chance to be free and she must take it.  In the cover of darkness, she surrenders herself to a mysterious lover for just one night.

Prince Nicolai is also pressured by familial expectations.  The Betram Festival is just what he needs to let off a little steam.  He gets more than he bargained for when he is drawn into the arms of a woman who won’t even tell him her name.  He is left with a feeling of emptiness that can’t be filled until he finds her.

“Unforgettable Lover” has big ambitions.  A retelling of the Cinderella story minus the ugly step-sisters, its attempt to create an alternate universe and populate it with diverse beings is admirable. Unfortunately, it falls very short.  Set some 600 years ago in a “remote area in the Pacific Northwest” the reader quickly becomes confused as to what types of creatures the Lemuria are and where they live. Elements of science fiction are thrown in without explanation and the story ending is predictable and trite. With some rewrites, “Unforgettable Lover” could be a real gem; it has real creativity and some good solid writing behind it.

Gwenellen Tarbet