all book related reviews
A Hundred Summers is the second novel by Beatriz Williams (the hardcover, mainstream fiction alter ego of historical romance writer Juliana Gray). It’s a compelling novel, one that builds relationships and characters and suspense with great skill. Lily Dane was drawn to Nick Greenwald from the moment she first saw him. Her friend, Budgie Byrne,…
Capturing the brutality and fragility of life on the frontier, The Double Cross is a strong beginning to a new series set in New Mexico in the 1780s. As a juez de campo, an agent of the Spanish crown who registers and inspects livestock brands in the territory of New Mexico, Don Marco Mondragon knows…
The Tucker Springs, Colorado, novels are unique in that they feature a variety of authors who provide engaging stories, all of which highlight how opposites attract. For example, in Second Hand, a Hispanic pawn shop owner and a jilted straight guy, who’s getting rid of his fiancée’s things, mesh. In Dirty Laundry, a nerd entomology…
It is unfortunate when a solid storyline gets overwhelmed by too much going on, and damaged by characters the reader can’t relate to. The basic premise of this story – interesting. But the heroine was annoying and the story itself suffered from overload. When Zane Montoya stakes out the motel room of a conman, he…
I don’t read short stories or novellas and avoid marriage-in-trouble books. If I’d realized this was a novella about a 14-year marriage that’s in trouble I never would have picked it for review. Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss. While definitely not what I expected, this was a powerful, touching romance that I read in one…
The second book in the Grisha Triology will not disappoint fans of the first book, Shadow and Bone. We find Alina Starkov, Mal Oretsev, and The Darkling where they left off at the end of the first book, and the stakes for Ravka are even higher than before. Siege and Storm introduces readers to a…
Painful pasts seem to be the staple of romance literature. Mopping up the pain and putting protagonists on a newer, happier track make up the plotlines of a long line of memorable books. This change of path from Maxfield’s St. Nacho’s series and a slew of stand-alones marks the first of the Brothers Grime series….
There was a thread on the message boards a while ago asking “Where have all the historical sagas gone?” Well, I’ve found one, and it’s pretty darn good. The Scarlet Kimono is a sweeping adventure story in the mold of 1970s and 80s sagas. It has a lot of what I liked about those books,…
Narrated by Suehyla El-Attar A trend in romance novels: the small town series, where everybody knows everybody’s business, there are a bunch of love-starved singles and another bunch of sometimes lovable, sometimes irascible odd characters. This is Lucky Harbor, a small town on the Washington state coast. Mallory Quinn is a local girl whose family…
Robin Kaye’s second installment in The Bad Boys of Redhook series has a lot of elements that make it a book I wished I could enjoy and recommend. Unfortunately I didn’t and I can’t. Skye Maxwell comes from a family of very successful restauranteurs. Her older brothers were all awarded their own restaurants when they…
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