class-difference

REVIEW:  Beauty and the Blacksmith by Tessa Dare

REVIEW: Beauty and the Blacksmith by Tessa Dare

Dear Ms. Dare, I may have had it with Spindle Cove, your Regency-era haven for unusual young women and the men who love them.* The place has become nettlesomely toothsome, rather like Gwyeth Paltrow gushing over adorable organic baby blankets. This novella, Beauty and the Blacksmith, is a quick, easy read, the equivalent of a(…)

REVIEW:  Hurricane Lily by Rebecca Rogers Maher

REVIEW: Hurricane Lily by Rebecca Rogers Maher

“Lily Sawyer flees her controlling, wealthy family in New York City for a solitary existence on Cape Cod. Three months later, a mounting anxiety binds her to the house she can no longer leave. With hurricane season approaching, Lily hires Cliff Buckley—an angry carpenter with an immediate disgust for his elitist employer—to storm-proof her house.(…)

JOINT REVIEW:  A Christmas Bride by Mary Balogh

JOINT REVIEW: A Christmas Bride by Mary Balogh

Janine: We’ve all read Christmas stories which feature cynics whose hardened hearts soften during the holiday season. From Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to the Grinch in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, such figures are not uncommon in holiday stories in or out of the romance genre. But they are almost(…)

REVIEW:  The Runaway Princess by Hester Browne

REVIEW: The Runaway Princess by Hester Browne

Dear Ms. Browne, In all fairness, the title does promise what is delivered. But I found that I didn’t care for a woman who would consider this acceptable behavior. The romance is like one of the heroine’s mother’s fairy cakes or ‘light as air’ sponge cakes. And even the farting dog and images of Amy(…)

REVIEW:  Saving the Rifleman by Julie Rowe

REVIEW: Saving the Rifleman by Julie Rowe

Dear Ms. Rowe, It used to be that books set in the early years of the 20th century were few and far between. This situation has changed a little but whenever I read a blurb or description for a story set during this time frame, I still get excited and will always investigate it further.(…)

REVIEW:  A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer

REVIEW: A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer

Dear Readers, Sourcebooks is having a sale on Georgette Heyer ebooks this week (August 14-20), so I thought it would be a good time for another Heyer review. I noticed that A Civil Contract is one of the books on sale, and I’ve been wanting to write about it. Heyer fans really split on this(…)

REVIEW:  A Scandalous Scot by Karen Ranney

REVIEW: A Scandalous Scot by Karen Ranney

Dear Ms. Ranney, They were a pair, weren’t they? The earl who’d divorced his wife, and the maid who hid her past. Perhaps they deserved each other. I enjoyed your latest book A Scandalous Scot. It’s a straightforward love story–a Cinderella story, really–between a smart, competent woman and a compassionate, passionate man. The plot made(…)

REVIEW:  Marriage of Mercy by Carla Kelly

REVIEW: Marriage of Mercy by Carla Kelly

Dear Ms. Kelly, Somehow I got the setting/era for your latest novel, “Marriage of Mercy” completely turned around in my head, thinking that it was going to be set on the American Western Frontier. Then when I went back to the eHarlequin website to recheck the back blurb, I realized that whoever wrote it didn’t(…)

REVIEW: Wedded in Scandal by Jade Lee

REVIEW: Wedded in Scandal by Jade Lee

Dear Ms. Lee, I fell head over heels in love with your hero in the very first few paragraphs of your novel, Wedded in Scandal. “Yer wants to go in there? But, er, why?” Robert Percy, Viscount Redhill, ignored the mine manager and began stripping off his coat and gloves. They were in the shack(…)

REVIEW: The Danger of Desire by Elizabeth Essex

REVIEW: The Danger of Desire by Elizabeth Essex

Dear Ms. Essex: The Danger of Desire opens in the POV of a young woman named Meggs. Meggs, a London street thief, and her younger brother Timmy, are preparing to steal near the Admiralty building. Meanwhile, Captain Hugh McAlden is in the same building, meeting with Admiral Middleton, who tells him the Admiralty Board has(…)

REVIEW: The Famous Heroine by Mary Balogh

REVIEW: The Famous Heroine by Mary Balogh

Dear Ms. Balogh, Who knew you could be this funny? Cora Downes is the titular heroine of this 1996 book, now being rereleased in a 2-in-1 volume with The Plumed Bonnet, as well as (to borrow a phrase from the back cover copy on my old Signet edition) a fish out of water in London(…)

REVIEW: Deadly Descent by Kaylea Cross

REVIEW: Deadly Descent by Kaylea Cross

Dear Ms. Cross: I enjoy romantic suspense but I like a good military romantic suspense primarily because other RS often rely upon serial killers for the suspense but the military setting or paramilitary setting is more action driven, less psychological.  I also like the camaraderie between the soldiers but rarely do we ever read about female soldiers.(…)

REVIEW: The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville

REVIEW: The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville

Dear Ms. Neville: When I was offered the chance to review The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton I had no idea what to expect. I’ve had mixed reading experienced with Avon historicals, and while I have enjoyed our few brief exchanges on Twitter, I really had no sense of where your books fit in within(…)

JOINT REVIEW: A Marriage of Inconvenience by Susanna Fraser

JOINT REVIEW: A Marriage of Inconvenience by Susanna Fraser

Janine: This regency-set historical romance begins with the heroine, eighteen year old Lucy Jones, receiving a proposal from her cousin, Sebastian Arrington. Sebastian is the second son of a baron and a cavalry lieutenant and Lucy is a poor relation who has loved him from afar from years, so the prospect of marrying him is(…)

REVIEW: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

REVIEW: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

Dear Readers, I don't know if it was Jayne's recent review of the Merchant-Ivory film adaptation of this novel, or a discussion of Forster's works that some of us on Twitter got into a while back. There's also the fact that every time I see Jennie do one of her classics reviews, I think to(…)