Eve Silver’s debut tale of a damsel in distress and the mysterious doctor who rescues her draws the reader in with a deliciously dark, Gothic atmosphere that sets it apart from the light and fluffy historicals of recent years. Silver does an excellent job of evoking a dark and spooky mood and, while the organization…
The gothic Mists of Fernhaven series comes to an unimpressive conclusion in Joanna Wayne’s The Amulet. It starts with the potential to be the moodiest, most atmospheric installment yet, only to have its promising story fall victim to lackluster execution. One winter night, Deputy Bart Finnegan responds to an emergency call at the Fernhaven Hotel,…
In Reflected Pleasures, the second book of Linda Conrad’s Gypsy Inheritance series, a magic hand-mirror is given to the reluctant Ty Steele by Passionata, the daughter of the King of Gypsies. His cousin told him of the gypsy and her magic, but Ty cannot believe in it. The gypsy promises Ty that at the right…
Ever watch an episode of Charmed on tv? It’s a show about three sisters (at least initially, I think they’ve added a cousin or two) who find out their mother was a witch and they’ve inherited her abilities. The three of them live together and fight evil wherever it appears. Sounds interesting, and it was…
The recent ATBF column on African American romances motivated me to read one for review, and the fact that Any Rich Man Will Do had an intriguing premise didn’t hurt, either. Bad Girl gets her comeuppance. That would make anyone gleeful, except when that comeuppance becomes desperate, terrifying, and hungry. Jana Franklin, the man-hunting, man-stealing,…
Give Me Fever sounded like it would be right up my alley. The heroine is a lounge singer searching for a pirate’s long-lost treasure, with the pirate himself providing aid in ghost form. It’s not a bad read by any means, but also isn’t as good as I’d hoped. After her mother abandoned their family,…
I’ve read countless category romances just like Nothing Personal by Elisa Adams, which is, at heart, yet another variation of the older-woman-younger-man theme – same arguments, same development of story, same twists and turns. However, Elisa Adams’s take on this well-trodden path held my interest and was a pleasure to read. Carla Michaels, a self-assured…
After reading a score or two of European set historical romances, Written On The Wind, set in 1860 Texas, looked like a welcome change of pace. But after slogging through it, I finished it with a sigh of relief – seldom have I seen a couple with less chemistry than Matt Conway and White Fawn….
The prologue to The True Love Wedding Dress is set in 1790 Scotland, where Aileanna MacEwan is sewing a gorgeous wedding dress for her nasty mistress even though she is secretly in love with her mistress’s fiancé. Aileanna feels a strong connection to the dress and since she also happens to be a witch, she…
For the first half of An Invitation to Sin, I thought Ms. Enoch had escaped the Avon curse. In the mid-nineties Avon hit it big with several of their historical authors. These authors were publishing Regency-set historicals and since the books sold so well, the publisher decided all their (or as many as they could…
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