Since “Backlist”  is pretty much what the TBR Challenge is all about, this month felt completely wide open for both of us. In the end, while we chose different subgenres, we both went with similar strategies.  We each picked a backlist book by an autobuy author and as it turns out, we had somewhat similar results in terms of grading.  So, who’s on your backlist? […]

This month’s TBR Challenge post is smaller than usual, as Lynn wasn’t able to make it this time around, so Caz is flying solo this month. The “Family Ties” prompt offered plenty of scope; families often feature strongly in romance novels, whether it’s a couple making a family, family members featuring in a series or, as in the book Caz chose, a group of un-related people becoming a family unit.

Imagine by Jill Barnett

Many romance series feature siblings, but for the Family Ties prompt, I decided to go for a ‘found family’ story, and Jill Barnett’s Imagine (originally published in 1995 and reissued in 2017) fit that bill perfectly.

It’s 1896, and in San Francisco, successful, hard-working attorney Margaret Huntington Smith has been urged by her father, a judge, to take a well-deserved vacation.  Knowing she […]

For many readers, when you utter the phrase “old school,” they tend to think of big sweeping historicals. The hated phrase “bodice ripper” often comes up as do the clinch covers of old. And that’s certainly one way of doing old school romance. Maybe it’s pandemic fatigue, but neither one of us was really up to that thread of old school romance. Instead we revisited the world of Regency trads by well-loved authors, where Caz found more success than Lynn this month. […]