When we first meet our hero and heroine, there is a distinct power imbalance between them. Miss Helen Grey, the titular heroine, is a patient at Blackwell, an old manor home converted to an asylum for ‘insane’ women of the late 19th century in Yorkshire, England. William Carter, our hero, is her doctor. The Madness…
Every once in a great while, a book comes along and punches me right in the gut. It sounds unpleasant, and in a way, I suppose it is, but it’s also the best way I can describe my visceral reaction to certain very powerful stories such as Yara Zgheib’s début novel, The Girls of 17…
Elizabeth Elliott’s fine Montagues series follows another young woman through a new marriage in Medieval times in the aptly titled The Princess. The widowed-young Isabel Plantagenet of Ascalon, Dowager Countess of Rheinbaden in Germany, possesses a spine of iron – which is a good thing when she meets the muddy, brusque and bearish Sir Faulke…
Lia Overbrook and Cassie Parrish were once best friends. They had each other’s backs, they shared secrets, and they made a promise sealed in blood. They were going to do whatever it took to be completely in control of their bodies, to be thin, to be thinner, to be perfect. Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls begins…
What happens when a bad boy becomes a man? Nate Davis didn’t plan on returning to his hateful hometown. But then, he didn’t plan on being widowed in his twenties, or on his mother getting sick, either. Turns out, life doesn’t give a f$*k about plans. Hannah Kabbah thought her career in childcare was over….
Jackie Lau is a Canadian author writing diverse romantic comedy, something she definitely achieved in her first Kwan Sisters novel, Grumpy Fake Boyfriend. I thoroughly enjoyed that story about the romance that results when an introverted male science fiction writer does a friend’s sister a favor by playing her boyfriend for a beach weekend. In…
In the three years or so that she’s been a published author, Virginia Heath has gone from strength to strength, having produced coming up for ten novels, all of which I’ve read, enjoyed and rated highly. A Warriner to Tempt Her, the third book in her Wild Warriners series, takes place around five years after…
Foxglove Copse is the fifth book in Riptide Publishing’s Porthkennack universe, and in my opinion it’s the best so far. The books in the Porthkennack series are all standalones, set in and around the Cornish town of the same name, and this one, written by Alex Beecroft, includes all the elements I love in a…
WARNING: This book contains a main character with severe OCD who self-harms. If you find this subject matter triggering – even though the author handles it with tact – then this might not be a comfortable read for you. Proceed with caution. Everyone loves those Winston boys. And who can blame them? They’re funny, sexy,…
Vanessa North’s Summer Stock is a heart-warming late spring /summer read. I must admit I had to look up the meaning of the title but it seems to be what in the UK we call a ‘Summer Season’, where a theatre puts together a company of actors to mount a couple of plays over the…
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