The French Revolution was, arguably, one of the most frightening national tragedies in history. Its excesses and corruption shocked contemporary observers around the world, including those who initially applauded the spirit of the Revolution. Surrender to a Stranger is the riveting story of a man who makes it his business to free victims of the…
On December 31, 1999, I watched the New Year celebration that took place on the Mall in Washington, DC. One of the highlights of that event was a beautiful 20-minute chronicle of the most turbulent and jubilant times in U.S. History. I consider Eva Rutland’s latest novel to be almost as worthy a chronicle of…
I always look forward to a new book by Julia Quinn, because I’ve enjoyed all of her books to varying degrees. They aren’t all keepers for me, but I find that even the ones that aren’t favorites generally have plenty of humor and likable characters. The Duke and I fits this mold. It has some…
This story is a departure from Ms. Stuart’s previous works. The hero was not as tortured, and there was almost a light-hearted tone throughout the story. Maybe the term would be dim, not dark, but not truly light either. Nicholas Strangefellow is not what he seems. The King’s Fool is anything but, and his surname…
Having just finished a book (The Barbarian Earl by Nadine Miller) where the hero was a bastard who married a proper, high born lady – with revenge among some of his motives – I was intrigued by how this book would carry out a similar premise. I know what author Smith is capable of –…
“I woke in such a good mood this morning. There was a dress floating about in my head; almost ready, almost there. Cream silk, the skirt trimmed with tiers and tiers of rough cream lace and the bodice tuckered but unadorned except for a single rose.” So begins 36-year-old Susanna Weber’s diary and Eva Ibbotson’s…
The Countess is a rewrite of one of Catherine Coulter’s old Regencies. I’ve had a sketchy history with those. The first one I read was too padded. The second one I tried had a rapist hero. Luckily, The Countess avoids those pitfalls because Catherine Coulter does something different with this one. Instead of trying to…
Honey is a sweet slice of late Victorian Americana. It deftly mixes comedy and angst and features a spunky (but ladylike) heroine and a strong (but tortured) hero along with a fine group of supporting characters. Best of all, for a sports lover like me, most of the book takes place during the baseball season…
Anne Stuart’s To Love a Dark Lord is aptly named, for the hero is about as dark and tortured as a reader is likely to find. He’s well matched, however, as Stuart is wont to do, both by an equally tormented heroine, as well as a set of secondary characters whose romance is nearly as…
Lately, in historicals, we’ve seen a lot of families headed by heroines. There was the desperate family in Jo Beverley’s Forbidden Magic, the needy family in Julia Quinn’s How To Marry A Marquis, the witty Shakespeare-quoting family in Jacquie D’Alessandro’s Red Roses Mean Love and the irresistibly multi-lingual, intellectual family in Liz Carlyle’s My False…
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