I’ve heard some readers say they dislike reading Scottish historical romances from the period immediately preceding the battle of Culloden because they have a hard time believing in any happy ending when they know such happiness is doomed by history. I have the same sort of difficulty with 19th century Indian romances, which is the…
Shades of Honor is a Golden Heart award-winning novel, and in this case it was an award well deserved. I’ve had something of a dry spell lately; I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to be so enthralled in a book and so concerned for the characters that I lose all track of time. As the…
Author Linda Jones has written a series of books based on well-known fables, the latest of which is DeButy & the Beast. Now, you’d think that DeButy would be the heroine and The Beast, her eventual true love. But the author has put a fresh and funny twist on this theme, for Dr. Julian DeButy…
The little town of Fertile, Missouri between the wars is the setting for this novel of love, crime, and secrets. There are lots of characters and subplots, but three main threads emerge. The first thread is about Julie Jones, an innocent, wholesome farm girl who left school at age fifteen when her mother fell sick….
Will Falcon is a ship’s captain with a mission. He’s in search of the pirates and thieves who’ve been luring ships onto reefs, and then collecting the booty from the wrecks. Unfortunately, he’s tossed overboard during a storm and would surely drown if it weren’t for Angel, who lives with a ragtag band calling themselves…
Having read Reavis’s new historical The Bride Fair, I was curious about its relationship to the author’s other historicals. I did a little digging and found out that the The Prisoner is a prequel of sorts, so I searched out a copy of the older book, hoping that it would be as good, but not…
When I picked up Gentleman’s Bargain I had just finished reading a contemporary, a paranormal, and a mainstream fiction novel. All I wished for was a simple old-fashioned historical romance. Well, after struggling with this 300+ page story for over three weeks I’ve learned to be very careful with my wishes. This was an “old-fashioned…
According to the author biography provided, Irish Rogue is Candace McCarthy’s eighteenth book. This is a fact that astonished me. The uneven pacing and stilted dialogue would make me guess that this was a first novel, if pressed, and one that could have used the efforts of an honest critique group and an editor. Conor…
Every once in a while the tried and true is set slightly askew to great effect. Carla Kelly is famed for her ability to take oft-used regency characters/settings and make them fresh and thought provoking. She’s able to make you think of the people and the times they lived in a different light. Yvonne Jocks…
I had mixed feelings about Gifts from the Sea. One minute the characters would be refreshingly honest, and the next they were having very clichéd misunderstandings. It was this inconsistency that kept me from truly connecting with the story. Goodger transports the reader back to the 1800’s and the tiny coastal village of Truro on…
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