California Angel - Softcover

Nancy Taylor Rosenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of Cheater, Revenge of Innocents, Sullivan's Evidence, Sullivan's Justice, Sullivan's Law, Conflict of Interest, Buried Evidence, Abuse of Power, Trial by Fire, First Offense, Interest of Justice, and Mitigating Circumstances. She lives in Dallas and is working on her next novel.

Rosenberg, who is known for her best-selling crime novels, including Mitigating Circumstances (1992), heads heavenward in a book that can only be described as a cross between Judith Krantz and Og Mandino. Toy Johnson is a schoolteacher who takes her students to her heart, so much so that she often gives them money (much to the disgust of her surgeon husband). In her dreams, Toy does even more, and she specifically remembers visiting one autistic boy and opening his world to relative normality. But this is no dream, because Raymond is that boy, now a young artist, and his paintings are filled with images of the red-haired woman in the California Angels T-shirt. When Toy goes to New York with a friend, her nocturnal visits to young children come more frequently, and soon Toy begins to realize they are more than dreams. Of course, in the modern world, no good deed goes unpunished. Toy's aid to children in trouble is noticed, and Toy is branded as a child abuser. There's no doubt that Rosenberg knows how to spin a yarn, but she really does go over the top here, culminating with Toy's fatal heart attack (every child-visiting dream is precipitated by a mild heart glitch). The heavenly host is pleased by her arrival in heaven: "We've been a little shorthanded in California lately. Not enough good prospects applying for the job. . . . If things don't get better soon, the Boss might get really angry. But that's okay. You're going to do real good, Toy." Like Toy herself, the book has its heart in the right place, but at least a few readers will probably wind up giggling rather than weeping. Ilene Cooper