To Love and To Cherish is the first volume of Patricia Gaffney’s justly renowned Wyckerley trilogy. The books are set during the Victorian era in the English village of Wyckerley. Wyckerley’s physical terrain is similar to Cornwall – mining and agricultural country, and one of the charms of the trilogy is how Ms Gaffney has…
In the third of her Wyckerly trilogy, Gaffney has crafted another true keeper. As she had in To Have and to Hold and To Love and to Cherish, the author makes this story stand out by creating two highly unusual protagonists – Sophie and Connor. Sophie, for instance, is of a higher social class than…
If you want to read a book that comes as close to perfection as any historical romance, then pick up Flowers from the Storm. The story, the language, the emotional intensity: this book has everything. It’s Laura Kinsale at the top of her game – or anybody else’s, for that matter. Archimedea Timms is a…
Hummingbird was LaVyrle Spencer’s second novel, first published in 1982. It’s a western historical romance featuring a bad boy hero and a prim spinster who bicker and fight and fight and bicker and finally become friends and lovers. Abigail MacKenzie is the town spinster. She is 33 and has spent the past 13 years nursing…
Jennifer Crusie writes books that I urge on other people. “Yes, yes, I know you don’t read romance novels, or if you do, you don’t read series romance. Read this!” And about ninety percent of the time, my victim loves every word of it and comes back asking for more. Unfortunately, Crusie’s category romances are…
I’m hard to please. There I’ve said it, and there you have it. Reviewers are occasionally taken to task for not “giving out” A-ratings more often, and it’s true, grading is as subjective as anything else; personal opinion is all it boils down to. But, as far as I’m concerned, to earn a Keeper rating,…
Silk and Shadows is one of the books in Mary Jo Putney’s Silk trilogy. These books are set in London during the early Victorian era, a time that is not often used in a romance novel. One reason I love Mary Jo Putney is that her heroes, Reggie in The Rake, Michael in Shattered Rainbows…
I thought at first that this book was going to be about someone’s honeymoon which didn’t much appeal to me. But no, Honey Jane Moon, is the name of the delightful heroine of this novel. Brought up in a dilapidated South Carolina amusement park, she makes the trek to Hollywood at age 16 and ends…
Okay, I have to eat a little crow. When I first read the synopsis of HeartThrob and saw the bright pink cover, I really thought it looked like a mainstream, Jackie Collins-type novel, even though I knew the writing would be better than that. I was wrong, and I should have known better. I’ve read…
The Rake’s Retreat is a lively romp made special by two wonderfully matched and humorous main characters, plus a couple of secondary characters who are almost as entertaining. Lovely Lovelace Wellesley, leading lady of her parents’ theatre troupe, Wellesley’s Wandering Minstrels, wanders where she shouldn’t in the Kent countryside and is witness to a murder….
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