Books by Carla Kelly
This is a curious anthology because while two of the stories are Kelly’s usual fare, one is happy-ending fiction rather than a romance, and the other is a reprint of the novella which introduced Able Six, an eidetic genius very unlike Kelly’s general ordinary-folk protagonists.
Boxing the ...
Sailing Master Able Six’s odd name reflects his dismal origins: the sixth child abandoned that month at a workhouse orphanage, and too durable to die. His uncanny brain (he remembers absolutely everything he’s ever seen) allows him to become a Royal Navy sailing master, a position never previous ...
Carla Kelly’s The Wedding Journey is the story of a marriage of convenience made during wartime in order to protect the heroine from the threat of being sold off in marriage to pay her father’s debts. In the hands of this author, however, the story is so much more than the story of two people ...
Are books read on vacation just better? While I wouldn't say an awful book would suddenly become riveting when read in the shade of a palm tree, I do have some particularly fond memories of vacation reads. I read Courting Carrie on a cruise ship, on my honeymoon. So, you know, it's kind of hard to t ...
Carla Kelly is an auto-buy author for me. She reminds me a little bit of a modern day Jane Austen but with a tad more bite; sweet but with a dose of pepper. I am not sure there is even a mediocre book among her backlist much less a poor one. Her latest novel is another winner and I am sure Kelly fan ...
Reading this book made me realize why authors publish different books under different names. I have a picture in my head of “a Carla Kelly book” and Paloma and the Horse Traders doesn’t fit that mold. The setting is very violent (which I avoid in fiction), the characters make some morally ques ...
Even if I do not always come away from a Carla Kelly book thinking it is one of the best books I have ever read, I always come away satisfied with a good story. I also have to watch myself in grading because I have read so many books by Ms. Kelly that I expect her books to be good and if they fall s ...
Originally published in 1990, Mrs McVinnie’s London Season tells the story of a young, Scottish war widow who, rather like a Regency Mary Poppins, joins the household of a troubled family and, with her very individual blend of kindness, practicality and backbone, improves the lot of each of its me ...
When I first got my hands on Marco and the Devil’s Bargain, I was a little let down. I hadn’t realized it was the second in a series, and more importantly, that it followed the same couple that had already fallen in love and gotten married in the first book. In the past, I’ve read other storie ...
You know what I like about Carla Kelly’s books? They have real people. I don’t just mean that she doesn’t pull out the marquesses and dukes, although she has eschewed the nobility in the last decade. I mean her characters act and speak like actual complex human beings. They don’t just shriek ...