Allie Therin returns to New York City in the 1920s with Once a Rogue, the follow up to Proper Scoundrels, a spin-off from her Magic in Manhattan series. In that book, centre stage belonged to Wesley Collins, Lord Fine, a cantankerous aristocrat and cynical, self-confessed arsehole, and powerful magic-user and dangerous marshmallow Sebastian de Leon,…
Arden Powell’s Flos Magicae series of 1920s set fantasy romances comprises a mixture of full-length novels and novellas that can be read in any order. I’ve been meaning to give their books a try for a while, so I picked up the most recent entry, A Thief and a Gentleman, which features a romance between…
Gill Paul’s multi-faceted look at a group of world-shaking real life female best friends whose wit, skill and wisdom will change countless lives definitely has a lot of pep. The Manhattan Girls sports snappy dialogue and a fun sense of time and place. New York City, 1920. Reviewer, poet and satirist Dorothy Parker has a…
Last Call at the Nightingale combines authentic-feeling prohibition era period detail with a heroine who’s easy to love, a unique cast of supporting characters, and a genuinely surprising mystery. It’s 1924, we’re in New York City, and bisexual Irish immigrant Vivian Kelly sews at a dress shop for a living, sharing a tenement apartment with…
In the Face of the Sun is an engrossing family saga filled with heartbreak and love, victory, forgiveness, and loss, and a wonderful character study of several unforgettable women. It is 1968, and a pregnant Frankie Saunders is leaving Chicago, abandoning an abusive marriage to the violent, controlling Jackson with the help of a ride…
The Lost Son is a very straightforward women’s fiction novel centering around – you guessed it – a woman’s quest to find her missing child. Julia Kruse’s mother died in childbirth. Her father, a famous chef at a luxury hotel, fears his demanding job will keep him from spending time with his two young daughters,…
Allie Therin’s Magic and Manhattan series concluded earlier this year with Wonderstruck, leaving Rory and Arthur in a good place, disposing of the evil Baron Zeppler and nicely tying up the major plotlines. Despite a few quibbles, I enjoyed all three books, so I was pleased to learn the author was writing another novel set…
I have been blown away. Chloe Gong set a high bar with These Violent Delights, a 1920s fantasy version of Romeo and Juliet which transports the story’s action to Shanghai. Our Violent Ends is the first book’s equal. Gong’s talent remains unstinting. You need to read this book. It’s now 1927, and Juliette Cai is…
Transporting Shakespeare’s The Tempest into a 1920s setting and retrofitting the story into one of an established blood family versus a found one is not an easy feat – and its one Samantha Cohoe attempts with limited success in Bright Ruined Things. The tension in the mystery plot is palpable and the hero is interesting,…
The blurb for A Blues Singer to Redeem Him, promising a perilous interracial romance between the son of a Mafioso and a blues singer in a Jazz Age speakeasy amid the looming threat of the KKK, earned this title an instant high place on my TBR. Sadly, it failed to live up to my expectations…
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