all book related reviews
(originally published on January 7, 2014) Narrated by Rosalyn Landor A Kiss for Midwinter is an offshoot of Ms. Milan’s current Brothers Sinister series, a companion novella that takes place after the events of The Duchess War and which tells the story of Minnie’s best friend, Miss Lydia Charingford. We learned in the earlier novel…
(originally published on December 25, 2019) Despite being a family of non-believers, every year we pull out our holiday paraphernalia. We dress the tree, hanging with care the delicate glass ornaments gifted to us over the many years, sentimentally rub our fingers over the ones our children made, pull out the stepladder and put our…
The Plight Before Christmas needs an editor, has leads in their late thirties who behave at least ten years younger, and manufactures so much angst in its final few chapters that I felt cheated the book didn’t come with its own tissues. Our leads, Whitney and Eli, were in love seventeen years ago and–shocker–it ended…
It was the plot description of Jenn McKinlay’s Witches of Dubious Origin that inspired me to pick it up (and then realize I’d enjoyed another of her books in 2024, Love at First Book). With a librarian heroine, witches, and magic spells, this one is an entertaining and plot twisting cozy fantasy read. Zoe Ziakas…
While it’s set around the Christmas period, Nicky James’ latest standalone romantic suspense novel is most certainly not a fluffy-bunny holiday story. And then some. Kismet is a superbly plotted emotional rollercoaster of a read that goes to some dark places – please read the author’s warnings on her website – because the mystery is…
Christmas People begins by gently mocking Hallmark movie conventions and then embracing them. That’s a bit of a disappointing twist, but if you’re in the right mood -mushy, feeling like you’d rather read something soft and sweet than hard and bitter – this might be the right book to read this holiday season. Jill Jacobs…
There is the kernel of an interesting idea in Paula Lafferty’s The Once and Future Queen. A modern woman who is basically the reincarnation of Guinevere must go back to Camelot to save the day. I’m down for that (I mean, I picked this book to review based on that premise!). But the execution is…
This is a fascinating book that’s hard to rate, as it’s a poetic enterprise entirely done in opera verse. That means The Siren and the Star won’t be for everyone, nor every teenager, but its unique ways will definitely appeal to the artistic, the dramatic, the operatic. For indeed, it is an opera. Luciana “Lula”…
Be sure to have some tissues handy for this one. This is a reissue of Where It All Began and is a prequel to the Blue Moon series. It is book seven of the series and is the story of the patriarchs of the family, John and Phoebe. I struggled with the HEA but enjoyed…
Ella Hayes is a new-to-me author, but if The Single Dad’s Christmas Proposal is anything to go by, I’ll likely be reading her again. Set primarily in ski resorts of Chamonix, this was a romantic Christmas story. While the author covers some serious emotional territory, there is something about this tale that feels warm and celebratory,…
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