I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting when I picked up A Reckless Encounter by Rosemary Rogers, one of the queens of seventies-style epic romance. Certainly I didn’t expect it to be so boring. Reading this book was about as exciting as watching an undubbed foreign film: I could see what the characters are…
Sometimes it almost seems like plot ideas float around in the air. Five or six years ago, I read three separate westerns about tone-deaf heroines who wanted to be saloon singers. Last year mistress books were all the rage. And this year? It has to be love lessons. I’ve seen no less than five of…
As Major Anthony Wyclyff lies in his hospital bed dying of fever, he begs his charitable visitor Sophia Rathburn to marry him. Lady Sophia, an old hand at hospital visits, accepts his proposal. It’s her standard response, intended to give comfort when she’s certain the patient is dying. Considering that no one ever, ever succumbs…
The Perfect Princess had a plot that sounded interesting but ended up leaving me cold. It also had promising characters who proved to have little chemistry. What started as enticing, ended up being a perfectly average read. Lady Rosamund Devere, daughter of a powerful duke, is tired of her boring life. While everyone believes that…
Total amnesia from a bump on the head, while rare in real life, is fascinating enough that most of us will put up with it in a romance heroine. I will put up with it when it’s done right. I am fascinated by the thought of what it must be like to have to figure…
Cold. Distant. Uninvolved. Odd words to use to describe a book that is largely set in the beautiful Tuscan region of Italy. Yet that is exactly how I felt as I read The Fifth Daughter. The story was engaging enough, the setting was unusual and different, and several of the Italian seconday characters were very…
The beginning of Love Lessons reminded me a little of Robin Schone’s The Lady’s Tutor. A lady of quality goes to a man of bad reputation, skilled in the arts of love, in order to gain instruction. However, the similarities ended there, not only in the actual plot, but also in the tone of the…
Once in a while I come across a book that’s first in a series, breeze through it, and keenly anticipate the next installment. Since The Border Bride appears to be Elizabeth English’s debut book, I’m doubly impressed. Although I wasn’t completely satisfied with the development of the characters’ relationship, the writing struck me as solid…
What a find! The Wildest Shore is really different from anything else I’ve read lately. The pirate is not a handsome, devil-may-care swashbuckler. The ladies’ maid is not bosom friends with her sweet-tempered employer. The tropical island paradise features leeches, headhunters, and bugs the size of your fist. Different is good. Anne Hazlett is a…
I don’t believe in corporal punishment, but about half way through My Warrior I would’ve cheered had Holden de Ware taken Cambria Gavin over his knee and given her backside a thorough tanning. Unfortunately, Holden has the patience of Job and allowed Cambria to continue her bursts of idiocy throughout the book. Angus Gavin, lord…
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