cover image Forever and Beyond

Forever and Beyond

Penelope Neri. Zebra, $4.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8217-3115-4

In Neri's ( Bold Breathless Nights ) innocuous, silly romance, a woman learns that she has lived before and that she cannot leave her past life behind. When Kelly Michaels moves to Arizona to work in her best friend's boutique, an elderly Hopi medicine man employed in the store lulls her into a kind of trance with his hypnotic voice. Kelly recounts the story of a young Irish girl, Mary Kelly, who was abducted during an Indian raid in 1851. Raised by a kind Comanche family, Mary--now called Blue Beads--fled her Indian home to escape a marriage to a warrior named Broken Claw and become the wife of her beloved White Wolf. The following days find Kelly Michaels haunted by the mysterious tale: in her mind's eye, she sees Broken Claw's jealous attempts to destroy Blue Beads and White Wolf's contentment, the disastrous effort of Blue Beads's white father to reclaim his daughter and, finally, how Blue Beads's spirit abandons White Wolf and ``wanders the world, searching through space.'' As Kelly discerns that the dreams are real, she must learn how to become Blue Beads once again and fulfill her destiny, to return to White Wolf and be united with him in death. (Sept.)