Ah, Sicily! Gorgeous Italian princes, a hint of mystery and legend – as the setting for a story, it could be fabulous. Unfortunately, The Sicilian Amulet doesn’t deliver on the mystery, the legend, or the promise of exotic romance and exciting adventure described in its cover blurb. Jane Holland, a rather unengaging college student vacationing…
Sometimes it’s hard to predict whether any single element in a story is going to be a deal-breaker or a deal-maker; you just have to read the book to find out. The intense, almost violent, nature of the sexual relationship between the hero and heroine almost ruined this one for me, but Kinsale managed to…
How many authors could write a mystery series featuring a madam running a brothel and paying rent to the Catholic Church in 12th century London? And how many of those could turn around and begin a new series starring Lucrezia Borgia? And in both cases make those characters sympathetic and their stories intriguing? One of…
Okay, what you have here are lions, a curse, a remote castle in the Italian Alps, a hero who won’t let you look at him, and a spunky heroine who I occasionally wanted to deck. And it all happens sometime in the past, but exactly when I couldn’t even begin to tell you. Let me…
I was excited to be assigned The Italian for review; I enjoyed Coffman’s historicals years ago, when I first started reading romance, and I looked forward to a pleasant reacquaintance with her work. While the book turned out to be decent, it also turned out to have a far less romantic component than an historical…
Remember all those Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn movies? Charismatic characters speaking intelligent, witty, funny lines? Of if you can’t remember that far back and haven’t seen the videos, maybe you’ve caught a recent episode of West Wing. In both cases just about every conversation sparkles and the writers treat the viewers like they’re smart enough to…
Cold. Distant. Uninvolved. Odd words to use to describe a book that is largely set in the beautiful Tuscan region of Italy. Yet that is exactly how I felt as I read The Fifth Daughter. The story was engaging enough, the setting was unusual and different, and several of the Italian seconday characters were very…
Wounded hero, starved for love but refusing to recognize the fact; mysterious heroine with an undeserved reputation; Big Secret; coerced marriage that both parties agree will never be consummated; things that happen, not because of characterization, but For The Sake of The Plot. Ho-hum, been there, read that. The only things that set this book…
A man is sent to retrieve a runaway lady and ends up falling in love with her, each of them unaware of the secret the other is hiding. This sets up the main conflict in Scandal in Venice, a conflict born of desperate actions and many secrets. Lady Elizabeth Everdean is in shock. She had…
Ooh-la-la, what a treat this book is! I have admired Barbara Samuel’s writing, and Night of Fire, the sequel to The Black Angel, merely cements my admiration. A lush setting, strong characters, an impossible love – if it weren’t for a slight falter at the end, this one would go in the box I’m taking…
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