I freely admit that the transition from Stuart to Hanoverian monarchy is a period of history I don’t know much about, for all that I regard myself as a bit of an amateur historian. But I didn’t need to keep one eye on Wikipedia as I was reading, because Ms Duran does a splendid job…
I adored The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu by Mindy Hung, who has written some charming romances as Ruby Lang (Playing House, Open House, House Rules), and one (Wild Life) as Opal Wei. Leeann Wu is in the middle of the three generations of the Taiwanese-American women in her family. Leeann is a midwife, her…
Cat Sebastian has cornered the market in queer twentieth century historical romances, moving from the 1940s-set Page & Sommers mysteries to the Cabot stories of the sixties and seventies and then to late fifties for We Could be So Good and You Should Be So Lucky. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them and am delighted…
Girl Next Door is a truly fun romance with a great premise. Quick-witted and sparkly, it keeps readers fully engaged right down to the last drop, well-earning its A ranking. The plot is also romcom catnip in a way that doesn’t feel cloying or smug; a solid romance about a woman who doesn’t know how…
I love novels that can pay homage to source material and transform it into something unique. The Eight Heartbreaks of Hankkah is just such a book. This story tackles some complex subjects – death, abortion, fatal illness in a child, and divorce – with humour and sympathy. Evelyn Schwartz isn’t a Scrooge, but she is…
The Everlasting begins where it ends: beneath a yew tree. Its first chapter, The First Death of Una Everlasting, reads like a eulogy written for a nation’s best. We’re told that Una, knight of the realm, died for her queen, and that sacrifice birthed a great nation. But the story we’re given isn’t the one…
Narrated by Darcy Stark Although Breakaway Goals is a standalone romance, it’s closely linked to Beth Bolden’s Portland Evergreens books as the two leads have featured in secondary roles in that series and the author has been teasing their second-chance romance for quite a while. You could probably read or listen to this one without…
Princess of Blood follows Servant of Earth as the second book in Sarah Hawley’s The Shards of Magic series. It continues directly from where the first book ended and as a result there will be spoilers for it in this review. This one is another taut and exciting thrill ride through a world of magic,…
Dealing with a Desperate Demon is the second book in Charlotte Stein’s Sanctuary for Supernatural Creatures series, and it’s a gem! Nancy runs a bookstore in Hollow Brook – a small town where you can only see the supernatural if you are a member of the supernatural community yourself. Nancy is fascinated by scowly Jack…
I loved the introduction to Jen DeLuca’s Boneyard Key series, Haunted Ever After (it made my best of 2024 list), so I was excited to read the next instalment, Ghost Business. The series is an interesting take on the paranormal romance genre, in which the main characters are fully human and the world is our…
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