spy
A Blast from the Past review
originally published on December 22, 1999
The Veiled Web by Catherine Asaro is an intricately plotted romance set in 2010. The story brings together a ballerina, Lucia del Mar, who spends virtually all of her spare time on the World Wide Web (WWW), and Rashid al-Jazari ...
Butler Mae Valentine and former Major Hamish Kitt, the spy who loves her, return in this third instalment in Sandra Antonelli’s In Service series – which started life as a trilogy but is, according to the author’s notes, going to be expanded to incorporate a fourth book sometime in 2021. True ...
Want a fun, adventuresome romp through post-Napoleon English spy tropes? Lord and Lady Spy has a lot of fun tweaking the genre’s conventions while creating two characters who remain true to themselves no matter what while giving us a lot of good character work. It’s not quite perfect, but is ...
“I go to work thinking of death” begins Ji-min Lee’s The Starlet and the Spy a sentence that sets the pace for a very readable historical novel that takes a wholly different but understandably downbeat look at Marilyn Monroe’s iconic 1954 visit to troops serving in the Korean War. From its ...
Mary, Queen of Scots, was the subject (both knowing and unknowing) of many Catholic plots to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. Aware of this, and with new rumors afoot, Andrew, Earl of Exford, is assigned to monitor Mary’s visit to an English spa town. Luckily, he has a cover. Ten years ago, when he wa ...
Note: This review contains slight spoilers for earlier books in the series.
If you've not been reading Tracy Grant, you really have been missing out. Her Rannoch/Fraser series of romantic suspense features a compelling relationship, fascinating characters and worldbuilding that I just love. If yo ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on August 27, 2014
In All About Romance’s review of The Black Hawk in November 2011, Jean Wan wrote, “Once in a while, during every reader's literary life, you encounter a book that reminds you why you are a reader. It renews your faith, if faith wa ...
In A Hope Divided, we meet Marlie Lynch - a spy for the Union living in North Carolina - and Ewan McCall, an escaped prisoner with a dark past. They’re both brilliant, strong, resilient, and willing to do whatever it takes to stop the Confederacy from winning the war. As they have to flee Marlie ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on June 10, 2010
Plodding through forgettable spy novels (and historicals in general) sometimes makes me forget what a truly great book looks like – and then I read one like The Forbidden Rose. Joanna Bourne’s latest novel has everything I love about ...
An AAR Top 100 Romance
originally published on May 20, 2010
His at Night is the first Sherry Thomas book I've read since Private Arrangements, a book I liked but didn't love. To my mind, this one's better, and certainly worth the anticipation and buzz it's receiving. The hero and heroine are both ...