Remember the tissues when you read Tallchief

Tallchief
Dinah McCall

Mass Market paperback 1997
HarperTorch US cover

Back cover

A Dream... or a Nightmare?

Ever since the night Morgan Tallchief lost the only woman he would ever love, he

has struggled to seal away the past.  But now Kathleen Ryder is back in his life - 

still pursued by the deadly secrets that forced her to flee before.  And even though

Morgan swears to protect her, he is helpless against his own rekindled passion.

Kathleen has never forgotten the achingly sweet hunger that bound them together

years ago.  Now, still on the run, all she dares ask is that Morgan keep her safe - 

never expecting that he has the power to breathe life-giving fire to an ember that has

grown cold.

Cover I have

Written by Sharon Sala under her pseudonym Dinah McCall, this is the heart-wrenching story of Morgan Tallchief, and how a ghost from his past comes back into his life.

At eighteen, Morgan was on top of the world.  With only two weeks until he graduated, an athletic scholarship in the works, and his beautiful and shy girlfriend, Kathleen Ryder by his side.  All that ends in an instant the night her house explodes... with her in it.  Grief stricken and numbed by his loss, Morgan turns his back on school and running, joining the navy - leaving his heart behind in the grave of his love.

Now, 16 years later Morgan is out of the navy and working as a successful artist when out of the blue he finds his lost love Kathleen standing on his doorstep.  Not only is Kathleen alive {shock...horror!}, but she has also brought a piece of their past with her... their daughter Trisha.  

Hidden by the FBI in Witness Protection (with her parents) since she was 14, Kathleen is now a single parent with a killer on her trail.  Her father's testimony was only part of the reason their family hid.  Unbeknownst to her, he held a little something back from the FBI - and now the bad guys want it.  With no other options, she packs up her daughter, and seeks out the one man who can help her.  But the reunion of the long lost lovers doesn't quite go as Kathleen expected, and while both of them get some good verbal hits before they call a truce for the moment Morgan is wary of her return.  Just what will it take to convince Morgan that she didn’t want to leave him all those years ago?

This book is a real tearjerker at times.  I enjoy most of Sharon Sala’s books, but this is truly one of her best.  Morgan is a man who never got over the death of his love, and Kathleen is a strong woman who has never forgotten her high school sweetheart.  The author brings them together in a wonderful way, making readers root for the success of their reunion. The addition of Trisha, their daughter, and the closure that this brings to Morgan is lovely.  I wished for a longer book, but the world is well developed, and their back-story well fleshed out.  You care about these characters, but the only criticism that I do have is that the ‘bad guy’ responsible for her flight back to Morgan doesn’t seem right.  He is the son of the man her father testified against, and his desperation to get back a piece of evidence is strange (although if someone the account details to millions stashed overseas I suppose you’d want it too J).  His demise is wonderfully appropriate, and as a reader, you just can’t wait for it.

This is a standalone book with no others being written about the Tallchief family, but that doesn’t matter because I didn’t really want to know about any of the others.