IRRESISTIBLE FORCES

Author: Jo Beverley, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mary Jo Putney, Catherine Asaro, Jennifer Roberson, Deb Stover ISBN: 0451217241 1/2006 (PB release) FANTASY ANTHOLOGY Publisher: NAL/Signet

Six of today’s most popular authors join talents in this unique anthology that shows that love can conquer all—even the boundaries of time and space. With stories that feature the authors’ most popular characters from their most popular series, you’ll be transported to new worlds—and explore the bonds that draw men and women together. From sixteenth-century Britain to the farthest reaches of outer space, from medieval adventures to tales of inter-galactic love, here is a compilation that explores the wonderfully kinetic forces that lovers share—forces too great to resist...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

A simple guardsman and a bio-engineered super soldier steal moments together after a wedding...

An Elizabethan mage imprisoned in the Tower of London is released into the care of a powerful sorceress for an experiment that may cause both their deaths...

A young prince used to living a rural farming life has to choose between an imperial career and the love of a country girl...

A dead lawyer gets one last chance to set things right with his wife—as long as he can get past his hatred of the man she's meant to be with...

An ordinary woman is afraid that the love of a wild magician will consume her, but worries that their homeland won't survive if she doesn't take the risk...

Maid Marian and Robin Hood take on a task they never would have expected...

These are the stories found in IRRESISTIBLE FORCES, originally published in 2004 and re-released now in mass paperback. I enjoyed all the stories but the first one, which is interesting but hard to follow because I don't know the characters from the author's previous work. If you did, it would probably be a great story.

All of the authors who contributed are well known, and at least one of the stories in this collection has won an award. The collection is well worth reading. I actually have read it twice, since I read the book when it first came out, and the stories held up very well.

Heather Hiestand