All the while I was reading Always by Trevor Meldal-Johnsen, I was wondering how I was going to write this review without offending people. Let me begin by saying that it is not my intention to insult anyone’s beliefs or spirituality. My opinion of this book is based on its effectiveness as a piece of…
This is really an odd book, and it’s hard to even begin to know how to explain it. Named of the Dragon is really straight fiction, but it has paranormal and suspense elements and slight – very slight – romance elements as well. I enjoyed much of the book, but the plot changed direction rapidly…
If you like reading about handsome people, perfect settings and beautiful scenery, this is the book for you. If, however, you want a book with some meat to it that might give you more than just an average pleasant reading experience, you should know that this is not that kind of book. Leonie Corinth moved…
When I think of Sandra Brown, I think of page-turners. Her books aren’t always good, but they are always exciting and hard to put down. At least, that was true until she wrote Unspeakable. In Unspeakable, we have a small southern town, a folksy retired sheriff, an unsolved murder, some revenge-bent escaped convicts, some sleazy…
When I finished Unspeakable, my first instinct was to take it to the bookstore and get my money back (which I still intend to do). As I’ve been trying to write this review, analyzing why I didn’t like this book, I keep finding myself thinking, “Well, I guess it wasn’t that awful.” The best I…
Firebird is a novel that would like to have it both ways. It’s being marketed as straight fiction (so people will take it seriously), but it’s also clearly targeting the lucrative romance audience. Frankly, I don’t think either group would find it very appealing. Straight fiction fans are likely to be annoyed by the heavy-handed…
The cover flap of Fortune’s Hand claims that the book is about “temptation, betrayal, greed – and of the redeeming power of love.” I have no quarrel with the first three adjectives, but if there is any redeeming love in this book I sure couldn’t find it. This is a depressing, unpleasant novel about one…
A casual bookstore browser may be lured into buying Ferney because its cover emphasizes its resemblance to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. Ferney is a good, compelling read, but it’s nothing like Outlander. There is no time travel here, but there are lots of past lives. If anything, it bares a passing resemblance to Jude Deveraux’s Remembrance….
Belonging is a very good piece of women’s fiction, but it is not a romance. A romance, to me, has the development of the relationship between the hero and the heroine as the primary focus (haven’t we discussed this at length many times at AAR?). In Belonging, romance elements play such a small role that…
Rose’s Garden is much like the angel who serves as the focus of the book. At once beautiful and insubstantial, it leaves a pleasant memory of a simple time spent with good friends. Conrad Morrisey is a 75-year old widower who is coping with the recent loss of Rose, his wife and childhood sweetheart. Normally…
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