Or maybe not.  DEJAVU LOVER also takes place in Seattle, but it is not a Mudflat story.  This is all romance without the paranormal adventures. 

     April Didricksen would love to fall in love, but for a variety of reasons, she doesn’t trust her heart.  Her romances never last, until a lover from the past turns up and after that, as the lovesong says, “nothing, nothing, nothing is the same.”

     He loved her and left her in another life and now he’s back.  Is that her fate, to love him and lose him throughout eternity?  April takes a winding trip through heartbreak country, finding glamour in Hollywood and passion in Seattle, plus a strange collection of clues in a small Minnesota farm town.

Excerpt:

     I was being pulled through the warp of time by a powerful magnet.  That man was absolutely out of my past.

     The magnet followed changing pathways across the campus, circling the fountain, crossing the plaza, hurrying up a short flight of cement stairs, cutting beneath the bare, gnarled branches of rows of hawthornes.  I followed him across lawns and parking lots and finally off campus, kept going along University Way which everyone calls The Ave.

     He turned in at a Greek restaurant.  I closed the distance and was maybe ten steps behind him by then, no more.

     He dropped his books and bag on a table by the front windows of the restaurant, slipped out of his coat and draped it over the back of a chair, then sat down on the chair next to it.  I stood at the opposite side of the table and waited for him to look up.  When he did, he didn’t seem surprised.  Instead, he smiled.

     Don’t know what he saw besides a woman in a hooded rain jacket dripping water on his table.  Nothing in his face indicated that he knew me or even vaguely remembered me.

     He said, “Hi.”

     I wanted to ask him if I could talk to him but honestly, I don’t usually go around picking up strange males.  And that’s what he thought I was trying to do.  Written plain all over that face, that very charming face with the Laurence smile.  And jawline.  And the tilt of his head.

     My voice stuck in my throat.

     “Want to join me?” he asked.

     “Please.”  I felt the blood rush to my face, damn, I was blushing like a teenager. 

     “Are you in my Shakespeare lecture?” he asked.

     “Oh.  Are you a professor?”

     “Yes.  I thought -- but if you aren’t one of my students, do I know you from someplace else?”  Same line between his brows when he was puzzled.

     “Do I look familiar to you?”  Stupid, but I blurted it before I could think of something clever to say.

     He chuckled and said, “I’m not much good at guessing games.  Why don’t I order omelets for both of us and then we’ll figure out who we are.”

     He turned and caught the eye of the passing waitress, held up two fingers of one hand, made a pouring gesture with the other.

     I knew that I should refuse his offer but as I could barely think, let alone speak, I peeled off my wet jacket, hung it over the back of the chair and sat down and waited.  The waitress put a full coffee mug in front of  me. I stared at it while he made the decisions.  He ordered for both of us.

     Then he said, “Shall we start with names?  I am Graham Berkold.  Want to tell me who you are?”

     “Do -- does the name Laurence -- were you ever called Laurence?”

     “I’ve been called numerous names, but never Laurence.  Oh!  I see.  You mistook me for someone named Laurence.  Lucky Laurence.  But you must not know him very well.”

     “It was a long time ago.”

     “Is there some reason why you prefer not to tell me your name?”  He gave me an amused glance from under those arched eyebrows while he stirred sugar into his coffee.

     “Not really.  No.  I was hoping you’d remember -- what -- can I ask you something?”

     “Beautiful ladies who share my table may ask me anything at all.”  There it was again, that Laurence smile.

     “Is there anything about me that looks familiar to you?”  Stupid, April, stupid, stupid.

     Tilting his head back, Graham Berkold gave me a long scrutiny, his eyes narrowed, the corners of his mouth twitching, and I could have sunk under the table.  Trouble was, I’d have to come out sometime. 

     He must have seen my embarrassment because he leaned forward, put his hand over mine on the tabletop and said, “Darling, if I’ve forgotten that we’ve met before, I deserve any insult you want to toss at me.  I do beg your forgiveness.”

     I mumbled, “I thought you were someone named Laurence.  It’s me who is rude.  I shouldn’t have bothered you and I am terribly sorry, Professor Berkold.”

     Still holding my hand, he said, “Call me Graham, will you, because I will never remember to answer to Laurence.  And don’t apologize.  For the rest of my life I shall consider it my great good fortune that on a particular winter day a particular trick of light made me resemble someone named Laurence.  Lucky me, that brought into my world a mysterious lady of unsurpassed beauty and no name.”

     Okay, I had to laugh at that.  I pulled my hand away from him.  “My name is April Didrickson.”

     He said, “April Again in Avrille.”

     “What?”

     “It’s a line from Millay.  I teach poetry.”

     I am truly proud to say that the Classic Romance Revival reviewer gave this book 5 wings.