I truly expected to like The Stargazer. I specifically requested to review it after seeing the promos for it on Amazon. The lovely cover, hardcover packaging, and author biography (she has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature of the Renaissance from Harvard) led me to expect a well-plotted historical novel set in a largely overlooked time…
There was not one thing I liked about this book. Not one thing. Please keep this in mind as you read this review because I have nothing good to say about The Stargazer, so I thought I’d warn you right up front. It’s got a pretty cover and a lovely title and I was really…
I keep meaning to pay a visit to the Buried Treasures page and submit Rosalyn West’s name, because I love her books, but I never hear anyone talking about them but me. Consider this review my annual appeal on her behalf – if you like American Historicals with complex characters and incredible conflicts, please give…
Fans of small-town stories will love Breathless for its setting, while readers who like a good mystery will enjoy the courtroom scenes. Don’t worry – Breathless also has great characters, including a hero and heroine who often match wits with each other. Lily Morgan can’t believe that Daniel Walker has the gall to return to…
Tales of the difficulties of publishing a novel in such a competitive industry as romantic fiction are legion. A novel like Kat Martin’s Nothing But Velvet makes you wonder if they are greatly exaggerated. Surely no one would choose to print a manuscript so lacking in compelling characters, interesting plot, and believable dialogue had there…
I had heard Coulter’s books could be a real gamble: you either win big or you lose big. Well, I should have cut my losses before I put money down on Devil’s Embrace. It’s a creepy, cruel novel, and that it was Coulter’s first full-length historical is no excuse. As her note on the back…
Johanna Lindsey’s Once A Princess is old-fashioned, fairy tale fun. The princess in question is Tatiana Janacek, the sole surviving member of the Janacek clan and heir to the Cardinian throne. Cardinia? Don’t spend too much time trying to find it on a map. Cardinia is pure invention, a vaguely Eastern European figment of the…
For about the first 100 pages of this book, I had to overcome the temptation to toss it through the roof and into orbit. I hated Eulie Toby the heroine, I hated what she had done to Moss Collier, the hero, and above it all I loathed how she kept referring to him as “the…
The front cover of The Scoundrel’s Vow reads: “She was young, beautiful, innocent. He vowed to protect her. . . from himself.” While that sounds terrific, the execution is far less scintillating – this is one of those books that just misses. Perhaps together we can discover why. Calandra Locke has returned home to Scarborough…
Morgan St. James, Viscount Barlowe, was your typical London rake until he tried to rescue his servants from their overcrowded quarters during a fire on the eve of his wedding. As a result of that fire, many of his servants and their children were burned to death. Morgan suffered severe scarring on his neck, hands,…
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