St. James Parish, Louisiana holds the distinction of being
number three on the list of U.S. counties having the most
Roman Catholics. But the parish's truly great claim to
fame is being known for the once magnificent and still
standing plantations on River Road running along the
Mississippi River. These antebellum mansions are a part of
Southern history that tourists pay to visit. Blue
Tousssaint Butler lives in a remodeled overseer's cottage
of Dahlia Hall, her family's plantation for nearly two
centuries.
At one time, Dahlia Hall had been one of the biggest sugar
producers in the South, second only to the Pennington
family's Esterbrook Plantation, a few miles south on River
Road. And for most of those two hundred years there has
been a feud between the Toussaint's and the Pennington's
over some disputed land that ran between their two
estates. Dahlia Blue Toussaint's, Blue's great-great-great-
great-grandmother, favorite quote about a Pennington: "You
can put a gold ring in a swine's nose, but it's still a
swine."
Esterbrook Plantation is not open to the public for several
reasons. First, the remaining heir, Kasper Pennington,
doesn't like strangers in his family home, and the
structure needs major restorations and repairs. Kasper
has moved his grandmother, Sudie, to an assisted living
facility while his construction company is working on the
old mansion, and she keeps running off. Sudie is at
Blue's cottage and calls her grandson to come and pick her
up, much to Blue's chagrin, and prays he does not remember
her and their first and only meeting on Memorial week-end
over twenty years ago -- but he does. Kasper was home on
leave from the Marine Corps and had just finished Scout
Sniper School -- and awarded his Hog's Tooth -- and would be
leaving in three days to be deployed. Kasper and Blue
might be mortal enemies, but that night the sizzling sexual
energy bouncing between them is combustible. Kasper's
mother always reminded him that Toussaint women had their
noses so high in the air they would drown in a rainstorm,
but those same women couldn't resist a Pennington man.
Blue is divorced and has a fifteen-year-old son; Kasper has
been married and divorced twice, but has no children.
When he retired from the military he returned to the tragic
conditions left by Hurricane Katrina and started a
construction company that now has branches in several
southern cities. The chemistry is still strong between
these protagonists, and difficult to ignore. Would the
world come to an end if a relationship developed between
them?
BLUE BY YOU is as hot and steamy as a Cajun summer and
Rachel Gibson is at the zenith of her awesome talent. The
characters are fleshed out fully -- usually in the flesh --
and the dialogue is razor sharp as Blue and Kasper exchange
raucous zingers about each other's ancestors. Ms.
Gibson's narrative is spot on and smooth as cane syrup,
which as all Southerners know is "larrupin' good." This
reviewer loved this novella and would love to read it in a
full length book that goes on and on and on!
They say you never forget your first time, but there's
nothing Blue Butler and Kasper Pennington would rather
forget than their brief but fiery teenage love affair. Yeah,
it was hot while it lasted, but then he went off to join the
Marines, leaving Blue in New Orleans. She's tried to block
him from her mind for good, but nothing can really erase the
feeling she had when she was with him.
And now he's got the nerve to
return––leaner, meaner, and strong enough to
pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Blue's a
successful businesswoman now, with no time to figure out
what went wrong all those years ago. But Kasper knows she's
the one woman for him...and now he's got to prove it to her
all over again.
It's July in New Orleans––it's hot, but it's
about to get hotter.
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