Teresa Medeiros is best known for her historical novels that span the time from Dark-Ages Ireland to Regency England. Her style is elegant and graceful and she can skillfully combine whimsy and angst in a way that few writers can. Try her Scottish novel A Whisper of Roses to see what I’m talking about. Teresa…
I’ve always appreciated an author who goes through the trouble of intensely researching the period he or she is writing about. Little snippets of historical detail throughout a book make it more believable and realistic, but too much detail can take away from the story. Unfortunately, Dangerous Lady by Amanda Scott has way too much…
Dangerous Lady could have been a great read. The plot is intricate and fascinating, and the hero and heroine are terrific. What’s missing? The romance! The hero and heroine are so busy worrying about politics that they forget they are supposed to be falling in love with each other. Their limited romantic interactions are a…
Jaguar Eyes had an intriguing premise to it. A man discovers the Amazons and wants to prove to the world what he has found. Unfortunately, for most of the book, the man acts like a creep toward the heroine, destroying a great deal of my enjoyment. Daniel Heywood sets out to make a name for…
How many people do you know with really strange names? Emmie Fox, the heroine of The Treasure knows lots of them. By the twentieth page, the reader has been introduced to the likes of: Borgle, Wombie, Sweep, Snoozer, Turnip, Cheap, Flash, Sprout, and Pilfer Oxleek. Later in the book Perdita Strangeways and Porkpie Snubbin join…
When I first saw the title Nell, I pictured the wild-child title character from the Jodie Foster movie, and I was sure I would never get that mental picture out of my head. About fifty pages into the book, I had lost that mental picture entirely. I was so engrossed in the storyline that I…
Lately, I’ve begun to think that there’s nothing new under the romance sun; it seems that every time I pick up a romance, I find myself thinking, “Been there, done that, ho-hum.” Then I come across a book like Nell, and my faith is restored, replenished, renewed. I cannot say enough good things about this…
Halfway through reading The Weaver Takes a Wife, I was tempted to stop and look again at the copyright notice, just to assure myself that I wasn’t reading a long-lost and recently rediscovered work of Georgette Heyer’s. This was a delightful read from start to finish, reminiscent of the writing that made me fall in…
The heroine of Dark Emerald owned a ring that is said to have great powers. That might explain how she managed to survive this novel, for she is very nearly the archetypal too-stupid-to-live heroine. Several times, Tara put herself in harm’s way by trying to escape the hero’s castle. To make matters worse, the main…
Sometimes an author gets too ambitious. In a series romance, due to length restraints, there really is only room for a story about a developing relationship, with maybe a tiny bit of subplot thrown in. In Springwater Seasons: Savannah, Linda Lael Miller attempts the impossible – to stuff a book with fewer than 150 pages…
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