May 19 2011
1861: The war that’s been brewing for a decade has exploded, pitting North against South. Fearing that England will support the Confederate cause, President Lincoln sends Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, to London. But when Charles arrives, accompanied by his son Henry, he discovers that the English are already building warships for [...]
Apr 15 2011
Broken Trail (2006) Genre: Western Grade: B+ Ah, the beauty of the West, of a herd of wild horses, of a campfire crackling at night, of a group of young Chinese women being driven to a fate worse than death in a rough hewn mining camp – wait, back up, strike that. Let’s start again. [...]
Apr 4 2011
Dear Ms. Canham, When I started reading romances again and discovered your books “The Wind and the Sea” was like the Canham Holy Grail. Long OOP, copies were prized and VHTF. I remember finding mine in a USB and fighting to stay casual as I took my purchases to the cashier – kind of like [...]
Jan 27 2011
Dear Ms. March. I loved the excerpt for this book: prostitution! angst! unrequited love! m/m romance! It hit many of my not-so-sekrit Buttons of Hottness and Readerly Pleasure. And I very much enjoyed the book, even if I wanted to beat one of the heroes and not in a fun, sexy way. Jasper Reed, a [...]
Dec 28 2010
Dear Ms. Dee and Ms. Devon: This was a December Recommended Read for me. I enjoyed the characters, I liked the plot, I liked the historical feel. Just in general this was a good solid historical romance. The year is 1866. Jonathan Reese is a spy, a former soldier who didn’t know how to re-enter [...]
Oct 1 2010
Nate and Hayes (aka Savage Islands) (1983) Genre: Adventure/Swashbuckler Grade: B- Did I understand correctly that we like our swashbucklers here? I think I did and here’s another entry into the genre. I first saw it when it was broadcast on the Cinemax cable TV channel, oh quite a while ago, but honestly have no [...]
Jul 23 2010
Disclosure: Back in the days when pterodactyls soared across the skies (about a dozen years ago or so) I took a couple of eight week novel writing classes with Patricia Ryan. She was a wonderful teacher, and I learned a lot from those classes. Aside from those two courses, and a one day writing workshop [...]
Jul 14 2010
My recent success with 19th century English novels has emboldened me to continue to tackle classics. I have also gotten into the habit of downloading public domain books onto my iPhone (the app I use is Stanza). I still love my Sony PRS-505 Reader, but the thing that’s great about reading on the iPhone is that [...]
Mar 25 2010
My route to reading this slim 19th-century novel was somewhat circuitous. Years ago, on romance message boards, I repeatedly read about the greatness of a certain historical romance miniseries called North and South. This was not the rather campy American Civil War miniseries starring Kirstie Alley and Patrick Swayze, but rather a British production, based [...]
Mar 8 2010
Dear Ms Raybourn, You created a splash in the subgenre of historical mysteries with the “Silent” series and now move on to something a bit different. The era is still Victorian but the place is the depths of Transylvania where the strange is normal and things are believed which defy the imagination of other countries. [...]
Mar 9 2009
Dear Ms. Dayton, Unlike some of my fellow reviewers here at Dear Author, I don’t try books by new-to-me authors as frequently as I probably should. A lot of that is simply due to the fact that I am a slow reader and it takes a lot of my reading time to keep up with [...]
Feb 4 2009
Dear Ms. Blake, Last year I enjoyed another in your “Masters at Arms” series so when the arc arrived for “Gallant Match,” I made sure to make room for it on my reading schedule. Once again we’re back in second quarter 19th century New Orleans (May 1846 to be precise) but this time with an [...]
Jan 22 2009
Dear Ms. Cote, If one says that the American Civil War has dropped off the face of the earth as far as romance books are concerned, that goes double for the Reconstruction period that followed the end of the war. I guess picking up the pieces and sweeping away the rubble isn’t as much fun. [...]
Dec 8 2008
Dear Ms. Scott, I noticed the new category of Harlequin Historical this month called “Harlequin Undone.” I assume this is sort of a historical novella kind of thing as this story (in Microsoft Lit) formatted to 101 pages on my reader. I also assumed that it would skew more towards erotic romance though that didn’t [...]
Nov 12 2008
Janine: Since Pam Rosenthal’s previous book, The Slightest Provocation, provided us with some discussion fodder, we thought her newest, The Edge of Impropriety, might be fertile ground for a conversational review. Here is a description of the book, followed by Jennie’s thoughts and my own: The Edge of Impropriety begins with a prologue set in [...]
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