In the early days of the Blaze line, the publisher’s guidelines stated that the books needed to have a “sexy premise.” The problem was that not only were many of these supposedly “sexy premises” forced and lame, but having one didn’t necessarily result in a sexy story. Mara Fox’s Letting Loose! suffers from an even…
It’s been a while since time travel novels were in vogue and I wasn’t sure to expect when I started seeing them again. At its best, this can be a fun premise, but in the wrong hands it can be almost unbearably treacly. Luckily, Sara MacKenzie manages to avoid this and creates a more believable…
I enjoyed Mary Balogh’s last reissued book, The Secret Pearl. However, The Gilded Web, originally published in 1989, falls well short of the high standard set by that one. Alexandra Purnell, in search of a quiet moment outside the crowded ballroom, finds herself kidnapped and tied to a stranger’s bed. The bed belongs to Edmund,…
Aside from the generic title and the presence of a Big Secret, this was a wonderful romance that places the author firmly on my radar. Maggie Sullivan is a television reporter who is good friends with her cameraman, Sean O’Reilly. Previously Sean’s womanizing ways were an automatic turn-off, but strangely enough, Sean has recently stopped…
Quite honestly, my chief reaction to this book is puzzlement as to why such a …well, ordinary book merits a big hardcover push from a major American publisher. Without knowing anything about the author, I picked this book to review on the basis of Amazon buzz raining with comparisons to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer….
Sylvie Kurtz’s A Rose at Midnight was the guiltiest of pleasures for me, a gothic romance so wildly over-the-top I could practically feel the cheese oozing from the pages as I read it. I couldn’t call it good, but darned if it wasn’t entertaining. Kurtz tones down the melodrama in her latest gothic-themed romantic suspense,…
Untamed continues Helen Kirkman’s Warriors of the Dragon Banner series. These men serve King Alfred, King of Wessex and the lone English kingdom to hold out against the Viking invasions. Untamed explores issues of family estrangements, loyalties and what binds us to another person. Kirkman also adds an element of mysticism to the series as…
The Twilight Deception by Elisabeth Drake owes a lot to early Laurell K Hamilton; her influence is felt strongly through the whole story. Arielle is the resident witch at the FBI, working in the newly created preternatural section. Their job is to keep paranormal activity on the down-low, so as to avoid panicking humanity which,…
After writing down my initial thoughts about Here with Me, I decided to read the AAR review for its prequel, Stay with Me, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something. Turns out that my reaction to this book was exactly the same as Lori’s was to the earlier one: we found nothing wrong with…
Amanda Stevens is an author whose books I used to enjoy very much, but over the years, I’ve become less and less satisfied; they are now shorter, shallower, and less fulfilling. Double Life is a case in point. It has a classic gothic premise that the Amanda Stevens of old could have done great things…
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