When Anne Mallory is on, she delivers in spades. Miranda Chase is accustomed to living vicariously through books (and occasionally through her wilder friend Georgette). She lives quietly, working for her absentminded uncle in his bookshop, and saving up for a Grand Tour that she always manages to put off. More recently, she has been…
The very best chick lit books entertain me, and often hit themes that resonate, even if the frequently encountered ditzy heroines sometimes drive me mad. Holly’s Inbox, a modern-day update of the epistolary novel, follows the life of fictional character Holly Denham as she starts work as a receptionist in a large corporate bank. Though…
Can I just say “wow”? Equal parts paranormal, historical fiction, and kick-butt thriller, The Historian is a rare thing – a “literary” novel that doesn’t read like one. What I mean by that – and I’m just being honest here – is that even though the author’s prose is sophisticated, her story complex, and the…
Let’s hear it for Kelly Ripa. When she chose The Boy Next Door for her “Reading with Ripa” book club, she picked a good one. In order to be selected by Ms. Ripa, a book must be “fun, frivolous, and fast.” Meg Cabot’s novel meets all those guidelines easily, especially the “fun” part. Melissa Fuller…
Letters from an Age Of Reason is a big (648 pages), sprawling literary novel set mostly in England but featuring American characters. Protagonists Arabella and Aubrey do not conform to society’s expectations, like Edith Wharton’s character, Lily Bart. The novel is told through a combination of Arabella’s journal entries and Aubrey’s letters like Samuel Richardson’s…
The Bad Luck Wedding Night is the continuation of Geralyn Dawson’s Bad Luck Wedding series. The heroine of this most recent installment is the business partner of the heroines from the previous two titles in the series (The Bad Luck Wedding Dress and The Bad Luck Wedding Cake) and the characters from the preceding books…
Devil’s Wager is the third in a trilogy by Mary Spencer (following Dark Wager and Lady’s Wager). Set in England during the Regency period, Devil’s Wager is Lad’s story, who was introduced to us in the earlier books. Lad, an American who has his own prosperous property in Tennessee, has inherited an impoverished English earldom…
Timmothy B. McCann is the latest author to enter the booming African-American fiction market, following the path blazed by Terry McMillan and Eric Jerome Dickey. His first novel, Until. . ., mines the already well-worked vein of contemporary male-female relationships, much of which will seem familiar to fans of the genre. Betty Robinson is the…
My Sweet Folly opens with a series of charming letters from Lt. Robert Cambourne to his cousin’s wife. The correspondence begins almost by accident with Robert writing to his elderly cousin Charles Hamilton about a minor estate matter and being answered by Charles’ lonely twenty year old wife, Folie. Robert and Folie’s initial letters are…
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