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,…
I’ll give props to Elizabeth Butler for tackling a sticky subject: the truth about slavery and attitudes toward it in the Border States just before the Civil War. The conflict at the center of the book is pretty strong, too: two people embarked on a Noble Cause who feel they must not fall in love…
Somewhere back in my youth I remember having a favorite historical romance that I read and re-read. Now all I can remember is the picture on the cover and the plot device that brought the heroine and hero together for the first time. The cover was one of those eighties covers – sort of a…
The first time I read The Dream Hunter, three years ago, I didn’t like it. At all. I don’t remember specific reasons, but I recorded a D as my grade for it in my personal reading log. I suspect I disliked the heroine and grew impatient for the slow-to-arrive resolution. My, how I have changed….
Egad. Here we go again. Another Scottish historical with badly written brogue. “While ye’re aff sleepin’ in the grass like a bluidy lamb, Lachlann and I are working our arses off pullin’ stones outta tha’ scabbert excuse for a field . . . You hinna gathered a single winkle all the day!” No. Not a…
After reading His Bride I tried to remember the last romance I’d read that focused almost entirely on the relationship between the hero and heroine, and you know, I couldn’t think of one. So many current romances include a mystery, paranormal experiences, the dreaded evil villain – or all of the above. The result is…
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