Hidden Passions: Secrets from the Diaries of Tabitha Lenox
by Alice Alfonsi

Book Description
Welcome to Harmony...

A dreamy New England Coastal town, filled with cobblestone streets, charming colonial homes ... and tumultuous secrets that threaten to tear its families apart. Only Tabitha Lenox knows the intimate details of all their stories. Most of Harmony thinks Tabitha is a "harmless eccentric." But she's really an irrepressible sorceress of darkness who's been causing the town cauldrons of trouble even before Prudence Standish accused her of witchcraft in 1693 (and Tabitha certainly hasn't forgotten!). Based on her secret diaries, Hidden Passions turns back the clock more than twenty years to expose the deepest, darkest secrets of the town's most upstanding men and women. Shocking secrets. Sizzling secrets. Shattering secrets. They're all here...and more. Enter Harmony, but be very careful if you should encounter a mysterious woman carrying a doll. As she's done with Harmony townsfolk for hundreds of years, she may very well look into your heart to see what you truly desire and grant it...for a terribly high price.

Review
The book is the diary of Tabitha Lenox (played by Juliet Mills on the soap), a 300+ year-old witch who's been living for centuries in the show's setting, a New England town called Harmony (even though life in Harmony is anything but harmonious). Peppered with comments and necessary historical background information from Tabitha's living doll, Timmy (Josh Ryan Evans), the book describes life in Harmony prior to 1999. Inspiration for the novel was a result of Timmy needing a little extra cash for his expensive, but addicting Martimmies.

In the story, well-to-do Ivy (Kim Johnston Ulrich) loves middle class pizza boy Sam (James Hyde), but forces (namely, Tabitha) are working to keep them apart. Ivy is to be paired with town scoundrel Julian Crane (Ben Masters), at the wishes of her dad and of Julian's machinating father, Alistair (John Reilly). But Julian is intoxicated by jazz singer Eve (Tracey Ross), who is about to fall in love with Sam's best friend and Julian's tennis rival, T.C. Russell (Rodney van Johnson).

Fans of the show know that, ultimately, Sam and Ivy share one last night (the night that she marries Julian), which ultimately produces Ethan (Eric Martsolf ), who was raised as a Crane heir until the eve of his marriage to Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald (Lindsey Korman), daughter of Ivy's maid Pilar (Eva Tamargo Lemus).

With the come and go over writers and producers, background information is sometimes lost. It takes great skill to master the “big picture” and make it a believable thread throughout the tapestry of the show. Intricacies like that displayed in Hidden Passions do not spring up over night! It takes planning, and sometimes decades of secrets to make something really viable and only soaps have that power. Hidden Passions enhances the current fan's viewing, and will intrigue many more to start watching.

I particularly like the idea that Tabitha has been a thorn in Harmony's side for quite some time. Tabby's diary takes us back to the early settler years, and explains Tabitha's hatred for Grace Standish Bennett (Dana Sparks) and her niece Charity (Molly Stanton), as well as a long-standing grudge against the Cranes. We also get to see why Sheridan Crane (Mackenzie Westmore) and Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald (Galen Gering) are meant to be as they've spent several past lives trying to be together.

Hidden Passions reveals a little bit of the motivation behind Alistair Crane. Alistair is an intriguing character, to say the least. It is exciting to know that he will once again wreak havoc on Harmony and his own family in the months ahead.

Confused? After reading the novel, the entire show and the motivations that drive the characters will become all too clear. It would be most appropriate to sip on a Martimmy while reading Hidden Passions: Secrets from the Diaries of Tabitha Lenox. This one is a keeper.

Martimmy
(source: SOD, Summer 2002)
3 (12 fluid ounce) cans frozen lemonade concentrate (thawed or diluted)
1 (2 liter) bottle ginger ale
1 cup frozen orange juice (thawed or diluted)
1 quart cranberry juice cocktail
1 orange, thinly sliced

1. Combine liquid ingredients; shaken, not stirred.
2. Serve in a chilled glass with a slice of orange.