A compromising situation forced him into marriage. But has his wife been working for the enemy all along?
In a steam-fuelled world where vampires once ruled the aristocracy, a dangerous conspiracy threatens to topple the queen, and the Duke of Malloryn knows his nemesis has finally returned to enact his plans of revenge. […]
For this month’s challenge, we were called upon to pick a book from a series we’re behind on. 
One of us followed instructions and the other? Well, we at least tried to stay in the spirit of things.
Again My Lord by Katharine Ashe
I had a bit of a struggle to find a book to suit this month’s prompt to read a book in a series I’m behind on, because I’m pretty much caught up with all the ones I’m currently following. There are some I haven’t started yet, but I wanted to try to stick to the prompt and finally, I came up with Again, My Lord, the second book in Katharine Ashe’s Twist series. In the two books in the series so far, she’s taken a couple of well-known movie plots as her starting points […]
As part of our site reboot, we’ve been publishing DIKLassic reviews. These are books that, in the past (at least five years), were DIKs–this means they got an A-, an A, or an A+. I typically pick books that are on sale–I shoot for 3.99 or less for an ebook.
These reviews have been popular and AAR readers often comment on them that they loved being reminded of books they’d forgotten about.
I thought it might be fun to start a bimonthly (every two months) DIKlassic bookclub. We’d suggest a book and then, two months later, chat about it in the comments.
What do you think? And, if you think it’s a good idea, what would you like to read?
Grade: A
Sensuality Rating: Hot
Pub Date: April 1998
What woman wouldn’t want to be rescued from a fate worse than death? What woman wouldn’t be grateful for the chance at a new start, even if it does mean marriage to a pirate? After all, isn’t marriage preferable to a life of servitude in New South Wales? Sabrina Jeffries’ wonderful book, The Pirate Lord, seeks to answer these questions.
AAR grade: A
Sensuality: Warm
Sarina Bowen’s first story in her True North series (known colloquially among bloggers as her ‘Grumpy Farmers’ series) is a lovely and lush romance set in the countryside of Vermont. Griff is a farmer. When his father passed away unexpectedly three years earlier while Griff was at college, his dreams for the future died, to be replaced by the day to day operations of his family’s farm. They have cattle, chickens, but most importantly, apples. 53 varieties of apple trees dot his lands, and are the farm’s main source of income. With a chemistry degree under his belt, Griff is making the most of his circumstances by using his expertise to create new original cider concoctions, hoping it’s the way to keep the family business afloat. […]
Grade: A-
Sensuality: Hot
Publication date: June 2010
European historicals set outside Great Britain are rare, and those set in countries other than France, Italy, and Greece are close to extinct. Carrie Lofty’s Song of Seduction is set in 1804 Salzburg, and merely reading about it got me salivating. It proved a rich meal: Tightly written, well-researched, and as moving and romantic as I could have wished. […]
Title: The Knight and the Rose
Author: Isolde Martyn
Grade: A
Setting: Medieval Romance (1320s England)
Sensuality: Warm
Readers who loved Isolde Martyn’s The Maiden and the Unicorn (Our DIK review is here.) have been waiti
ng (patiently or not) for the stateside publication of her next book. Here it is, and it takes the reader for an exciting ride as it follows the story of a forced, falst marriage and how the two parties involved eventually make it a true union.
Lady Johanna Fitzhenry is looking to escape from her husband Fulk de Enderby, who beats her constantly and has not gotten the heir he demands. She manages a bit of freedom when she is summoned to […]
Here’s another in our occasional series of mini-reviews. We’ve got five DIKs here along with three B reads! Here’s what Caroline, Caz, Maria, Heather, Shannon and E.B. have to say about some of their recent reads:
Caroline’s Read:
I just finished The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon. It’s a fantasy/dystopia novel about Paige Mahoney, who can spirit-walk in a world in which paranormal talents are illegal, and whose life using her abilities for an underground syndicate is disrupted by her arrest. She finds out that the entire structure of her world isn’t what she thinks, and she’s placed into the custody of the mysterious and powerful Warden. I have a guilty love of prisoner-captive books, and this is an interesting one, with solid sexual tension and a couple that plausibly has to work through some […]
Reviewed on April 20, 2000
Grade: A
Setting: Post-Civil War Texas
Sensuality: Warm
Never Love a Cowboy is the kind of book that makes me wonder why I’m not more familiar with Lorraine Heath’s name. Why is everyone buying that latest glossy big-name hardback when they could be reading this little jewel? Between these inexpensive green paper covers is a book with more emotional depth than anything I’ve read in a long time.
Harrison Bainbridge is one of a trio of exiled British noblemen who find themselves in the dusty little frontier town of Fortune, Texas. He is a charming clothes-horse with a gift for poker, but beneath his well-groomed exterior lies a man who believes that he is incapable of love. He was gravely […]
Narrated by Alex Wyndham
We first meet Alec Halsey in Lucinda Brant’s Deadly Engagement, where he investigates the death of a friend, and then again in Deadly Affair, with another murder and a mystery. Now, Alec is dealing with something completely different – his diplomatic past and the imprisonment and torture of his good friend Sir Cosmo Mahon and the young Emily St. Neots. Picking up basically right where the previous book left off, the reader follows Alec into Midanich, a small Germanic principality at civil war and ruled by madness, both in its populace and its Margrave.
Alec packs up immediately and, along with his love, Selina, uncle, aunt and assorted servants, heads out to the one place he wanted to never to see again. His past has definitely come back to haunt him, and now […]