all book related reviews
Juliana Gregorio and Michael Maguire happen to be on the same flight from Baltimore to Florida, where both are going to meet their significant others – Juliana’s long-time boyfriend and Michael’s fiancé. They hit it off right away, and quickly become friends. However, when they meet again on a return flight at the end of…
In The Sword and the Pen, a popular sword and sorcery writer comes face to face with his most popular character. Brandon Alexander Davis is the reclusive author of a very popular series of fantasy novels featuring the leather wearing, sword wielding heroine Serilda D’Lar and her fight against her sworn enemy Roarke (note: Please…
For me, comfort reads often involve a lot of angst. Something about the theme of love as redemption, and seeing love heal characters and help free themselves from their suffering reaches me on a deeply emotional level. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy Karen Ranney’s work; she does tortured characters quite well. In A…
The romance genre is a funny thing. It is the only genre that I know of whereby, of the three narrative components (plot, setting, and character), reader expectations limit and predicate two: Plot and character. The plot limitation is, of course, the Happily-Ever-After. But the character limitation is more personal – I defy any romance…
One of the reasons I don’t always like inspirationals is that the spiritual element seems forced, inauthentic, or overdone. In When Love Blooms by Robin Lee Hatcher, this wasn’t the case at all. The religious tones of the book are actually at times more believable than the romance. Emily Harris is a privileged young woman…
Everyone knows there are only so many plotlines in the world. When they are additionally circumscribed by vampires and demons and werewolves and your garden-variety homo sapiens, it takes really special characters – not plots, not settings, and not six-volume background material, mind you – characters to bring the series above par. Author A’s vampires…
I first discovered Elizabeth White when I read her Texas Gatekeepers trilogy of romantic suspense novels. I enjoyed them and I’ve kept up with her work as she moved to Zondervan to write contemporaries and then recently began writing historicals (including the wonderful Redeeming Gabriel) for Steeple Hill. Her latest book takes readers behind the…
The third book of the Cassandra Palmer series, Embrace the Night, takes you on a wild ride through time and space as Cassie attempts to break a spell that will destroy both her and Mircea, the vampire in her life, if it’s not undone. If you like non-stop action and an intensely supernatural world, you…
I read Don’t Bargain with the Devil at a snail’s pace. It was all I could do not to hurl the book out of the nearest window, and I could only take 20 pages at a time. While the plot is decent, the excruciatingly annoying characters doomed this story from the first chapter and made…
I’ve read one other book by Robin Wells, Wild About You, and enjoyed it enough that I thought I’d give How to Score a shot. I wasn’t disappointed, and found the characters to be charming and fun, even if the plot lacks a little believability. Sammi Matthews is a museum curator who’s having a bit…
End of content
End of content