This book reminded me of a song in the musical A Chorus Line: “Dance Ten, Looks Three.” The story was terrific, but the writing just didn’t cut it. Too elaborate, too long-winded, and I couldn’t even skim it because the writer has the habit of hiding important information in the middle of densely-packed paragraphs that…
The Merry Widow reminded me of a vaudeville act, a dozen plates kept spinning magically in the air when by rights, every one should crash and shatter on the ground. Again and again, I found myself thinking “This shouldn’t work, but it does.” A Greek chorus of Arctic explorers? Flowery, purplish prose? A hero who…
Fortune’s Bride isn’t all that bad, really. It has a certain exuberant energy that (barely) saves it from a full-on D grade. Unfortunately, almost everything else about it – plot, characterization, dialogue – is trite, occasionally bordering on childish. As I read this book, I kept feeling that I wasn’t reading a real romance novel,…
This book has everything. Too bad this includes just about every tired plot twist and cliché available in romance today. This includes, unfortunately: A reluctant bridegroom determined to not love his wife because of his tragic childhood, who nonetheless lusts madly for her on every other page. Is he tortured or just melodramatic? You be…
The heroine of Once A Rebel by Tammy Hilz plans to steal from the rich and give to the poor. However noble her motives, she’s still a person who takes it upon herself to decide who gets to keep their money and who doesn’t. That’s just one of the problems I had with the book….
I’ve enjoyed Barbara Dawson Smith in the past, particularly Her Secret Affair. However, Romancing the Rogue didn’t quite work for me. While the heroine is interesting and the story had potential, the hero’s continuous lack of trust was a problem. Sure, I expected some distrust on his part because the heroine was a Gypsy, but…
Lady Pirate is one of those books with a little bit of everything: Slapstick humor, blood, revenge, adventure on the high seas, mystery, mistaken identity, cross dressing, and even steamy sex with bondage. What it doesn’t have are characters a reader can connect with, and towards the end the author just seems to be throwing…
Cleopatra Fraser is the daughter of a respected Egyptian archaeologist, Everett Fraser. Cleo and her father have a partnership: she does all the work, and he gets all the credit. David Evans, nicknamed Angel, was once Everett’s assistant. He seduced Cleo, not realizing (oops) that the beautiful and competent young woman was sixteen and a…
Let’s get one thing straight: despite the insipid cover, Lucien de Montforte is much too smart to go out in the snow in a cloak and no shirt, although he does occasionally go coatless. I had great expectations for the conclusion of the de Montforte series, and on this crucial point I was completely satisfied:…
After reading the first two chapters of this book, I knew exactly where the story was headed. There were absolutely no surprises, and that made for a boring read. This book is part of a series, and the first two titles were apparently better than this one. Had I read the other books, it might…
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