Leslie LaFoy wraps up her Perfect trilogy in winning style, pairing the slightly reckless, danger-seeking private investigator Barrett with his “perfect” feminine counterpart. The result is a thoroughly engrossing relationship between two equally strong and self-sufficient characters. Barrett Stanbridge awakes one morning to find himself the chief suspect in the murder of Mignon Richard, who…
Anyone longing for old-style big, sweeping historicals will probably enjoy Cheryl Sawyer’s latest novel, a story rich with historical detail. Sawyer, an Australian author being published for the first time in the United States, delivers a large-scale historical drama in a fashion reminiscent of historical fiction and historical romances from many years ago. However, instead…
The Chase is a hard book to describe. The heroine was single-minded until about halfway, at which point she started showing depth. And while “heat” isn’t necessary for me to enjoy a book, this one certainly improved, also about halfway through, when it got nice and steamy. Both of these changes were to the better,…
They say that good things come in small packages and, in the case of Loving Mercy, this came so very close to being true. While this rather charming debut novel is still somewhat better than average, it did have its flaws. The author manages to pack an impressive amount of plot and emotional wrangling into…
Time was, I’d enjoy a long satisfying wallow in Nicole Jordan’s overwrought prose. But, sadly, as Bob Dylan said so long ago, the times they are a-changing and, as I struggled to get through the 445 pages of this novel, it’s more than clear that the author decidedly hasn’t. Maybe it was Ms. Jordan’s trademarked…
Justin Sterling, the hero of Samantha James’s A Perfect Groom, is a tortured sort. We meet him in a long prologue, in which we see that his mother was unfaithful and died while trying to run off with a lover. Justin’s abusive father constantly told him that because he looks like his mother, Justin must…
Just when I thought I’d read almost every variant of Western romance, along comes Lynna Banning’s latest. Forget cowboys and ranchers, this is the tale of a town fundraiser and a mail-order bride competition. While the initial set-up of the story is rather contrived, the story does have some rather unexpectedly touching moments. Leora (Lolly)…
Lawrence of Arabia meets Sylvia Pankhurst? Though this is the Victorian rather than the Edwardian era, the idea of a be-robed English soldier and fiery suffragist falling in love in Egypt is undoubtedly an intriguing one, and one ably executed by Melody Thomas. Brianna Donally, a photographer, and her sister-in-law, Lady Alexandra, a renowned archeologist,…
I thought long and hard about this review. I knew the book didn’t draw me in as completely as Ms. Bradley’s earlier books had, but the reasons for that had me stumped. There were a couple of problems in the plotting and characterization, but that still didn’t account for my overall lack of engagement in…
I am astonished by how much I didn’t like this book. Victoria Alexander is an author I can usually count on to be witty and cozy; I have never before associated the word “maddening” with her. A Visit from Sir Nicholas, though, features turgid prose and a self-satisfied, smirking hero who is putting up a…
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