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…
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…
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…
A marriage of convenience is supposed to be beneficial to both parties. As a marriage in name only, it is supposed to provide not only security, but freedom not normally allowed within the confines of a conventional marriage. Both husband and wife are free to conduct their lives as they wish with no fear of…
This book is like eating a piece of dark chocolate when you are dieting – you know it is not good for you, but you cannot help wolfing it down with guilty pleasure. After swallowing, you feel bad because you didn’t resist the temptation. I have recently suffered through a long streak of prim Regencies,…
It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that I disliked as much as this one. Its only redeeming quality – and this is really stretching it – is that it is rife with pathetically humorous purple prose. Diana Covington, beautiful, young, and nubile, is attacked during a party at her father’s house by…
The plot of The Pretenders is not exactly new. The hero needs to marry to get his inheritance, so he engineers a sham engagement that backfires and turns into a real engagement. We may have read it before, but Joan Wolf makes it a joy to read it again. With her unique first-person style and…
Carolina Rose is an impressive debut for author Tracy Sumner. The hero and heroine were believable and likable, and the circumstances which brought them together worked well for me. There were some problems with the technical aspects of the story, however, that detracted somewhat from my overall enjoyment. Adam Chase has come to the small…
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