Linda Madl’s Silk and Secrets is a flawed but fun Victorian romance with a very old-fashioned feel to it and strong Gothic overtones. <!– var browName = navigator.appName; var SiteID = 1; var ZoneID = 4; var browDateTime = (new Date()).getTime(); if (browName=='Netscape') { document.write('‘); document.write(”); } if (browName!=’Netscape’) { document.write(‘‘); document.write(”); } // –>…
The Girl with the Persian Shawl is not a showy, angst-filled book full of deep emotions and action galore. Rather, it’s of the quiet, drawing-room drama variety; it’s full of normal people who happen to be living in the Regency. No one is larger than life. At first the book just seemed mildly pleasant and…
In terms of the romance community, Eloisa James came out of nowhere a couple of years ago with the publication of her first romance in hardcover (Potent Pleasures). Perhaps because she was an unknown in the community who got a hardcover deal, when so many more familiar authors couldn’t, or perhaps because of some of…
Jillian Hunter is one of those authors whose books I enjoy, but I never feel compelled to go out of my way to find them. They are usually highly amusing and contain likable characters, but there is usually something that keeps me from putting her on my auto-buy list. The Husband Hunt exemplifies this. I…
“He was going to shut her up once and for all! He ground his mouth down onto hers, savagely assaulting her sumptuous lips, plunging his tongue deep into her hot open mouth, wanting her to taste his fury.” You know, it was getting to the point where I was wondering if we really needed a…
We’ve all complained about historical romances featuring heroines who are little more than modern-day misses, with modern attitudes and ideas, playing dress-up in period clothing. Candice Hern’s novel offers a twist on the formula: this time it’s the hero who comes off as a pre-Regency proto-feminist, while the heroine is firmly – and much more…
Not So Innocent takes place in London and its environs in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. Mick Dunbar, a detective with Scotland Yard, is celebrating his 36th birthday when he meets Sophie Haversham. Sophie is psychic, and she comes to Scotland Yard to tell the police that she’s had a premonition of a…
It took me a long time to read Love Me Again because the manuscript I had was bound in such a way that I constantly had to twist and turn it to follow the pages. My cat thought this was great fun and her batting at the pages only added to my reading problems. But…
The Wedding Journey is a rather whimsical title for a book that so clearly juxtaposes humanity’s potential for both great good and terrible evil. A more accurate, if less appealing, title would be Retreat Into Hell. That would better convey what these characters have to confront and overcome. Elinore “Nell” Mason is the daughter of…
Karen Ranney has written some wonderful romances; Upon a Wicked Time is a sexy favorite of mine. So I was a bit disappointed in The Irresistible MacRae, a static tale that bears a few telltale marks of slipshod plotting. As the book opens, Riona McKinsey is returning home in shame. During her Season in Edinburgh,…
End of content
End of content