I don’t usually like books with cute, precociously sweet children in them. Maybe it’s because as a mother and grandmother, I know how quixotic children really are, and many novels I’ve read would have me believe children are always cute and cuddly little angels all the time. That’s why I’m as surprised as anyone that…
Sometimes I crave a saga, something long and involved like Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander that seems to go on and on. Only instead of time travel set in Britain, I’d like something set in the old West. Fortunately, new writer Ellen O’Connell has stepped up to fill the bill, and I can’t wait for her next…
Carla Kelly has long been a favorite among AAR staffers and readers, but a relatively hard to find one if you do your primary reading out of libraries and used book stores, as I do. I did manage to get my hands on the much acclaimed Beau Crusoe, which I enjoyed but which was a…
Trial by Desire is elegantly written. The plot is nice and meaty, the heroine is intelligent and capable and the hero is a tortured soul struggling toward self-knowledge. By all counts I should have loved it, but I ended up only liking it about an average amount. Lady Kathleen Carhart is beautiful and accomplished. Her…
I’m not sure why it took me so long to read Tessa Dare. She’s certainly a well-respected historical romance author. This is largely why I selected Three Nights With a Scoundrel to review, and man, am I glad I did. I loved every page. When Lady Lily Chatwick’s twin brother Leo is murdered, she is…
Narrated by Victor Slezak Envy is part of my Unofficial 2010 Listening Challenge. I haven’t been a fan of romantic suspense in the past and Envy changed that – completely. Sandra Brown has to be one of the more refined voices for sophisticated suspense combined with romance. I wasn’t bored for a moment as I…
Narrated by Julia Gibson The touching story of a paraplegic finding a man who worships her and is determined to make her life better, Phantom Waltz reads like a fairy tale at times. A DIK when I read it some years ago, the listening experience didn’t rate as high for me. It may be the…
If you’re on the hunt for something different, a mute albino papermaker in Medieval France is a heroine who doesn’t come along too often. Though Watermark, like many debut novels, seems a bit unpolished, the story is still an engaging one and gives readers an indelible picture of a tumultuous era. When Auda is born,…
Narrated in the first person, St. Nacho’s is a story of contrasts. Cooper, the narrator, is struggling with his past, and yet for all the angst, the story is full of hope. Also, although Cooper is a skilled violinist, he falls in love with a deaf college student. Yet it’s Cooper’s past that truly gets…
I love unique settings and the fictional island of Mirabelle is brought to life so successfully that it almost seemed like an additional character in First Come Twins. More importantly, the book features a likeable and realistic tortured hero and a troubled heroine. It is the best category romance I’ve read this year. Fifteen years…
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