all book related reviews
One of the trends in romance is that many long-term, and successful, romance novelists are moving into the realm of romantic suspense. When done well, these can be brilliant books, very exciting, and filled with passion. Alas, when the suspense borders on the grisly and the romance is sorely lacking, you get something like Ghost…
Almost every historical romance you read has a bathing scene. In it, the heroine climbs into a big copper tub filled to the brim with steaming water and thinks about the trials of having a fabulously wealthy earl, or marquis or duke in relentless pursuit. Often she’s in the hero’s house. He has perfunctorily “ordered…
The Countess is a rewrite of one of Catherine Coulter’s old Regencies. I’ve had a sketchy history with those. The first one I read was too padded. The second one I tried had a rapist hero. Luckily, The Countess avoids those pitfalls because Catherine Coulter does something different with this one. Instead of trying to…
Sometimes when you read a lot of historicals, a contemporary suspense novel can be like a breath of fresh air. When I picked up All or Nothing, that’s what I was hoping for, because I enjoyed Elizabeth Adler’s last book, Sooner or Later. Unfortunately, this latest offering is a little more average. The suspense portions…
Honey is a sweet slice of late Victorian Americana. It deftly mixes comedy and angst and features a spunky (but ladylike) heroine and a strong (but tortured) hero along with a fine group of supporting characters. Best of all, for a sports lover like me, most of the book takes place during the baseball season…
This book started out with an interesting premise, but due to a serious lack of sizzle between the hero and heroine, and a few plot problems, it went downhill about halfway through. Isabella Joubert is the daughter of a wealthy businessman who also happens to be the head of an extremely large criminal organization. Isabella…
Anne Stuart’s To Love a Dark Lord is aptly named, for the hero is about as dark and tortured as a reader is likely to find. He’s well matched, however, as Stuart is wont to do, both by an equally tormented heroine, as well as a set of secondary characters whose romance is nearly as…
They said it couldn’t be done in a romance novel. Then they said that if someone did write it, no one would read it; it wouldn’t be commercial. Who are they? Both readers and writers who posted to romance listservs on the internet saying that a heroine couldn’t have an abortion in a romance novel…
The Taming of Jessi Rose opens with ten year old Griffin Sloan witnessing his mother’s slow death from tuberculosis. Griffin’s mother had run the railroad station and the railroad bosses had promised she would run the new station when the new rail line came through. However, the new line was subsequently built in another part…
Sometimes on Saturday mornings I sit with my kids, and watch one of the live action shows, produced for children and teenagers, that breaks up the ususal schedule of cartoons. These dramas are heavy on the fantasy and have names like The Lost World. Some are time travels set in the dinosaur age, others are…
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