all book related reviews
Mr. Montgomery’s Quest is one of those “okay” or “pleasant” Regency Romances. It’s competently written and doesn’t raise the hackles, but it’s not exactly a book one can get excited about. Charlotte Pelham is an unusual female who would like to be able to support herself after her mother’s recent re-marriage. The problem is that…
A Woman Betrayed opens with thirty-nine year old Laura Frye wide-awake, knuckles white. It’s five in the morning and Jeff, her husband, never arrived home from work. There has been no call, no message, nothing. Laura is frantic. The two have been married for twenty years, have many friends and two children. In Laura’s opinion,…
Carolyn Rose’s A Love Through Time would have been a far better story had it not been “through time.” The time travel aspect weakened the story considerably, since it really didn’t work. There is also a serious lack of chemistry between the hero and heroine, and some problematic believability issues. Despite these flaws, however, the…
I love Nora Roberts’ J.D. Robb books, I simply love them. But as for the books she writes under her own name, I find myself blowing hot and cold. Some of them (the Born In series) are on my keeper shelf, some of them (the Stars of Mithra series) I am indifferent to, and some…
In a novel that is supposed to involve spies, secret missions, and a faux mistress for the hero, there is remarkably little to intrigue the reader. What starts out as a very promising premise quickly falls flat. And, perhaps understandably enough, flat is the word that first comes to mind in describing this book. The…
Kathleen Kane has written two of my all-time keepers, The Soul Keeper (aka A Pocketful of Paradise) and Still Close To Heaven. In those stories she skillfully blended paranormal elements with Americana and brought her characters to life with humor and passion. Though Just West of Heaven never quite achieves that level of unforgettable emotion,…
The fourth and final installment in Lynda Sandoval’s interconnected Hispanic-American romances, Thief of Hearts, is a quirky and touching romance that manages to generate heat without the characters exchanging a single kiss. The characters are realistic, the plot simple yet involving, and the language enhanced, rather than distracted, from the story. Graciela Inez Obregon had…
I don’t read scary books. Why? Well, it’s simple, really: I’m scared of my own shadow. No, really – I slept with a nightlight for years. In college. So when I tell you that Brenda Joyce’s latest novel House of Dreams is really scary, you might want to take it with a grain of salt….
It’s a bad sign when I can put a book down and not pick it up again for five whole days, especially if I start looking at my TBR longingly, and the book I’m reviewing starts to resemble a dreaded homework assignment. Unfortunately that is how An Echo in Time felt for me. I just…
Quirky characters can be highly amusing when done well. But too many quirks piled on in an attempt to deepen the humor only make a book everything but funny; instead the characters become caricatures and the plot suffers. Charlotte Hughes excels at writing three-dimensional characters who have enough quirks to be interesting. She adds depth…
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