Eloisa James writes ensemble romances, and her central characters always consist of a group of women whose stories are told sometimes one after another, sometimes simultaneously. In each volume you have one central story, but added to this are bits and pieces of other stories that are not concluded in the installment. I adore Eloisa…
I started reading this anthology right after reading Laurie’s fantastic ATBF column on urban fantasy. It even got me out of lurkerdom on the AAR boards to comment. I spent a good deal of time contemplating why I like urban fantasy so much, because it’s one of the few genres in which I have auto-buy…
When I first started reading romance, time travel romances were fairly plentiful. The quality wasn’t always terrific, but the selection made up for that somewhat. These days it really seems like all-vampires-all-the-time. Time travels are so few and far between that I nearly always snap one up when I see it. A Highlander for Christmas…
Christie Ridgway’s Not Another New Year’s is one of those novels that starts off with too many stereotypes and then gets better. I had very low expectations after reading the first chapter, but found myself agreeably surprised about some interesting developments later – not that all the stereotypes disappear, but still. In addition, Christie Ridgway’s…
The title is a bit goofy and the cover is cheesy, but none of that matters in light of the fact that the story is downright awful. Myles Donal, powerful warrior and eldest son of the laird of the Donal clan, is reluctantly making his way through a snowstorm to marry the heiress of Eschoncan…
Christie Ridgway has many good AAR grades to her name. She scores again with Must Love Mistletoe, a wonderfully amusing and poignant story of two reunited lovers. Bailey Sullivan (named after George Bailey in the holiday movie It’s a Wonderful Life) doesn’t like Christmas, despite her name, and hasn’t celebrated it for the last ten…
In Christmas Letters Debbie Macomber says what every mother of young children has wanted to say to the childless who are full of “helpful” advice on child-raising. As a mother, I got the distinct feeling that Ms. Macomber had also been in the position of receiving unwanted “help” as her child “acted out” in the…
Historical author Hope Tarr makes her contemporary debut with It’s a Wonderfully Sexy Life, the third of Harlequin’s Extreme Blazes. This holiday-themed tale makes a few missteps, but overall it’s an enjoyable read. Baltimore cop Mandy Delinski doesn’t think she has much to celebrate this Christmas. It’s starting to look like she’ll never make detective,…
Kids by Christmas is the last in Janice Kay Johnson’s trilogy about siblings who were separated when their parents were killed and who have now found each other. The first two books in the series – Open Secret and Lost Cause – told how Suzanne Chauvin, the oldest of the family, discovered her sister and…
Every autumn brings a plethora of holiday-themed romances to bookstores. Like most readers, I’ve read my share of them. M.J. Rodgers’s Heart vs. Humbug remains one of my all-time favorites. The third in her Justice, Inc. miniseries, it’s a marvelous blend of intelligent characters, razor-sharp dialogue, clever plotting and good emotion that makes for a…
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