Improper Advances starts out with an intriguing heroine who seems very different from the pack. She’s a widow and a professional singer – not a shy, retiring miss or a spunky, virgin blue-stocking. She also has a reputation, mostly undeserved, for dallying with men. I was immediately interested in her. But alas, the plot is…
I loved the central conflict in this book: the hero and heroine, who once loved each other deeply, have now come to hate each other just as deeply, and not because of any big misunderstandings. She was a Southern Belle and he was a Union spy. The met, fell in love, and got married in…
Ooh-la-la, what a treat this book is! I have admired Barbara Samuel’s writing, and Night of Fire, the sequel to The Black Angel, merely cements my admiration. A lush setting, strong characters, an impossible love – if it weren’t for a slight falter at the end, this one would go in the box I’m taking…
Katherine Sutcliffe’s new Victorian romance, Notorious, has a troubled hero, a feisty heroine, and lots of derring-do on the high seas. It should appeal to those who miss the “old style” of romance discussed this fall at AAR. Lord Jason Batson is one of the top agents in the British secret service known as Cobra….
What do you do when a romance has almost every element you need, but one? You gnash your teeth and hope for more in the next one. Border Storm takes up the story of the Scottish Borders at the end of the 1500’s. It follows the author’s earlier Border Fire. Laurie Halliott is the daughter…
If an author has done her job, I will be swept away into another world and introduced to people I would like to know in real life, and when I leave this fictional world I will have been moved in some way. With The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn has most definitely done her…
“Richness” is the word that comes to mind when I think of By Design. This is what happens when an author comes along and takes something familiar – the medieval setting – and brings it to the next level. A proud young woman stands selling her crafted pottery and statues, her poise setting her apart…
This book has everything it needs to be a success and yet it left me feeling disconnected. In fact, there’s very little I could point out as being intrinsically wrong with the book, and yet it didn’t work. How’s that for a vague statement? The “everything it needs” includes: Heroine – Beth Simmons, an appropriately…
I was bit worried when I started hearing all the positive word of mouth for this book, because when I had skimmed it initially, I hadn’t wanted to dive right in. I was pleasantly surprised to discover The Duke definitely deserves its buzz. Robert Knight, the Duke of Hawkscliffe, is called the Paragon Duke. Robert…
“The Ferryman was dead.” It’s a great first sentence, including, as it does, tragedy, mystery, and a touch of humor. Just what’s needed to grab a reader’s attention and pull them into a story. And like Julia Quinn and Julie Garwood, Patricia Cabot knows how to infuse the rest of her book with all three….
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