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Sarah Maclean is known for her women power romances. This one, one of her first, is a little more restrained in that regard but our heroine still finds her own joy. You can read our review here.

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, or Callie for short, has spent a lifetime being a good girl and model lady, but now she regrets it. On the eve of her younger sister’s wedding – a love match – she realizes her perfect reputation is a result of passiveness rather than choice, and decides she needs to change. Drawing up a list of forbidden activities is her first step, and being kissed (passionately) is the first item on the list.

Her kisser of choice is Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston and the man she has loved for years. As the weeks go by and Callie embarks on her other activities, Gabriel encounters her so often during her escapades that he finally makes her a proposition: He will squire her if she will shepherd his new found half-sister through her debut….

… the book is neither generic, nor shallow, nor cutesy. Rather, it’s a romantic character-driven story that also provides ample reasoning for the characters’ actions. I never once considered Callie’s list-making idiotic or contrived, and found myself sympathizing with her more often than not. If I occasionally thought she became idiotic, well, no one’s perfect. Gabriel is more or less your typical romance novel aristocrat, but he has depths that ring true and set him apart. His interactions with his family are particularly endearing. The secondary characters are roundish, if not quite well-rounded, and the external conflict believable.

It’s on sale at Amazon for 3.74 here.

Julia London has written lots of historical romances. We’ve not reviewed this one, but Amazon readers give it a 4.4 rating. Here’s the blurb:

Passion and secrets simmer behind the elegant façade of Victorian London in A Bride by Moonlight, another deliciously intriguing romance by Liz Carlyle that features the dangerous men of the mysterious St. James Society.

Faced with murder charges, Lisette Colburne never imagined aligning herself with Scotland Yard—not with the scandalous life she’s led. But when Commissioner Royden Napier proposes—that in exchange for her freedom—she pretend to be his wife so he can unravel a brutal mystery, she agrees. What neither counts on is their sizzling, undeniable attraction.

Sexy and action-packed, Liz Carlyle’s A Bride by Moonlight is a beautiful love story set in Victorian high society with compelling characters and elegant, emotional prose that will appeal to readers of historical romance.

It’s on sale at Amazon for 1.99 here.

Back in the day, Marianne Zapata was the Colleen Hoover of the time. Readers gobbled up her romances. This one, which was initially self-pubbed, has almost 32K ratings on Amazon and garners a 4.5. We too gave it a DIK. You can read it here.

The premise is fairly simple, and one of my favorites. Vanessa (Van) Mazur has been the personal assistant to football player Aiden Graves for two years and is ready to move on, while Aiden isn’t interested in letting her go. To keep her from leaving his life, and to conveniently solve one of his own problems, Aiden convinces Vanessa to marry him. Per their agreement, she’s stuck with him for the next 5 years , and Canadian Aiden gets to keep his green card by marrying an American citizen….

Everything is slow to build in this book. When Vanessa quits her job, it’s not because she’s been lusting after Aiden or hates him with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s because she feels underappreciated and is ready to go full-time into her career as a graphic designer. When Aiden initially tries to convince her to come back after she’s left, she turns him down because her quitting was well thought-out, not impetuous.  Even after she agrees to marry him, they don’t immediately jump into bed together. Instead they just live their lives side-by-side, and ever so slowly they become integrated and dependent on each other. This hooked me as thoroughly as any witty repartee ever did.

Of course, a big part of that draw was my liking for the characters themselves. The story is told in first-person narrative by Van, who is clearly wonderful from the start. She is strong and respects herself enough to know she deserves to be treated well by others, including Aiden. When she makes decisions, she stands by them. But even starting from this solid foundation, Van still manages to grow a lot over the course of the book. In the beginning, she’s overworked and exhausted doing a job she doesn’t really like. Once she decides it’s time to make changes, Van starts running more, relaxing more, and takes her life back. You can see her become more confident in herself with time, quietly supported by Aiden.

In fact, everything about Aiden Graves is quiet. He’s an enigma, and not being able to see into his head made him feel as unfamiliar to me as he was to Van. Although she’s worked for him for two years and knows the ins and outs of his daily life, Aiden has never shared much at all with Van. He doesn’t have many friends, doesn’t go out much, and mainly just lets his life revolve around football. Yet he is quietly honorable, and what glimpses he does allow into his thoughts show him to be a good man. Although I generally prefer third-person writing, the forced slow introduction to Aiden through Van’s first-person point of view is what kept this slow-burn book interesting. Like Van, I was eager to know him better, so they didn’t need to jump into bed immediately to keep things exciting. When he finally does open up, it feels worth the wait.

It’s on sale at Amazon for 2.99 here.

We gave The Austen Experience a flat out A. In her review, Caz wrote:

Time travel fiction is always going to have to address one big problem – how do people go back in time without somehow affecting their future? Here, Liam and Rachel are given specific instructions NOT to do anything which could have ramifications for their own time, but, as they soon come to realise, that was impossible from the moment they arrived, and they have probably altered things without even meaning to. And as they get to know Henry and Jane as real people rather than as historical figures they’ve only read about, they find it impossible not to want to help them in some way; by preventing Jane’s early death and the ruin of Henry’s business. It’s tempting – but dangerous. There comes a point where they both have to wonder if perhaps the tiniest thing they’ve done during their lengthy stay might have changed their own world/time out of all recognition and even to question if  they want to risk returning to it or stay in one that has, over the months, become more real to them than they could ever have thought possible.

There’s a lot to enjoy in The Jane Austen Project, not least of which is the sweet, sexy romance that develops between Liam and Rachel in which Rachel – in the manner of all Austen’s heroines – comes to examine her own thoughts and feelings and to draw some new and unexpected conclusions about herself.  Ms. Flynn carefully crafts a realistic portrait of life as led by the middle class during the Regency period, and there’s a terrific sense of time and place throughout. Having two fish-out-of-water protagonists act as the reader’s window into that world works extremely well to bring home the emphasis placed on the importance of correct behaviour and propriety, the position of women in nineteenth century society and the great inequalities and hardship that existed between the different social strata.

It’s on sale at Amazon here for 1.99 right now.