I have that same impression, too. Right now I can’t think of even one book I loved without qualification. Several were good and I enjoyed them, but many were meh or were good up to a certain point and then went south fast. And the tried and true folks were most prominent in the disappointing department (Putney, Chase, Beverley, Balogh). Depressing!

I tried to keep a book log, but gave up early, so I may very well be forgetting something or thinking it was longer ago than I think, but the fact that nothing comes to mind as outstanding speaks for itself (or my failing memory, grin).

I DO hate when an author has a good thing going and then changes it up mid-way through a series (or career)…although I guess it’s a personal decision on their part for whatever reasons they have.

‘Promises Reveal’ as far as I’m concerned wasn’t even trying to be erotic and was really boring. I certainly don’t read these books just for the sex, but it was an integral part of the earlier stories and so it’s noticeable that there’s been a shift in the writing of those scenes; I have no clue whether that’s from the top down or from author up or whether it’s deliberate or not, but as is clear from other comments, I’m not the only one who noticed. And I’m glad about that cause I wondered if I’d just gotten jaded. :)

And I am grateful for the review as it saves me a penny or two

Yeah, and if an author is going to use such a specific dialect (like the Quaker plain speech with thee) then the author should get it right [or an editor should fix it].

I didn’t finish Tucker’s Claim because thee with plural verbs (are, have) was so grating. (Quakers use thee for the singular and use a verb to match – generally the same conjugation as goes with he/she/it {is, has}, not with the plural you.)

Yeah, just a little judgmental — but it drove me nuts!

It's a lengthy tome, nearly 400 pages,

I don’t generally think of 400 pages as a tome. Is the print really small?

@GrowlyCub: I agree, I thought the sex scenes in Tucker’s Claim were just the same thing that we’ve seen before in the Promise & Hell’s Eight books but not as many and certainly nothing different from this fav author. Sex with a thee added.

However, I do like the covers. :)

Since it still says ‘erotic adventure’ on the cover of ‘Tucker’s Claim’ I thought that it was pretty sad that most of the sex happened behind closed doors or outdoors but we were told about it later rather than reading about it as it happened. One cannot help but speculate about books being sanitized for ‘wider’ audiences…