Historical Romances

REVIEW: The Other Guy’s Bride by Connie Brockway

REVIEW: The Other Guy’s Bride by Connie Brockway

Dear Ms. Brockway, When I found out the news that this story is about Harry and Dizzy’s daughter, I was initially excited. Until I sat and thought for a minute and realized that it’s been so long since I read “As You Desire” that I have absolutely no recollection of it and its two principals(…)

REVIEW: Pride and Passion by Charlotte Featherstone

REVIEW: Pride and Passion by Charlotte Featherstone

Dear Ms. Featherstone: I confess that I read this book because I just loved the cover.  The positioning of the characters, the color of the dress, the frills at the cuff of the man’s outfit. It was very evocative.  The soft against the hard.  It’s a clinch but an evocative, sophisticated clinch.   This is(…)

REVIEW: The Virtuoso by Grace Burrowes

REVIEW: The Virtuoso by Grace Burrowes

Dear Ms. Burrowes: I have been anxious to read your books since The Heir came out and circumstances (and other books) have always interfered with that goal until this month.  I bought The Virtuoso the day that it came out and sat down one evening with great anticipation.  The sad fact is that there scarcely(…)

GUEST REVIEW: The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne

GUEST REVIEW: The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne

Reader Christine sent me this beautiful review of Joanna Bourne’s book, The Black Hawk, and I am honored to share it with the DA readership. ****** The novel “The Black Hawk” begins in 1818, six hundred yards from number saeven Meeks street where Justine, a former member of the French “Police Secrete,” long estranged from her(…)

REVIEW: Madame Bovary’s Daughter by Linda Urbach

REVIEW: Madame Bovary’s Daughter by Linda Urbach

Dear Ms. Urbach,I picked up this book with a bit of hesitancy – I’ve not read Madame Bovary, and my only knowledge of the story comes from my viewing of a BBC miniseries from 2000, starring Frances O’Connor as Emma Bovary. I ended up hating it – most of all hating Emma, who was the most selfish,(…)

The Dear Author Intro Interview & Giveaway:  Alma Katsu, author of The Taker

The Dear Author Intro Interview & Giveaway: Alma Katsu, author of The Taker

I didn’t think I’d be doing this interview.  A few chapters into The Taker, I knew it wasn’t exactly romance, and doubted it was right for Dear Author.  But the story of Puritan-born Lanore McIlvrae and the gift she’s cursed with kept calling me back, and months after the last page, I was still thinking(…)

REVIEW: Always a Temptress by Eileen Dreyer

REVIEW: Always a Temptress by Eileen Dreyer

Dear Ms Dreyer: For the first third of this book, I had real doubts about whether I would finish it. The hero, Major Sir Harry Lidge, had fallen in love with Lady Catherine Anne Hilliard Seaton, Dowager Duchess of Murther ten years prior but because he believes that she tried to foist a bastard baby(…)

REVIEW: Season for Temptation by Theresa Romain

REVIEW: Season for Temptation by Theresa Romain

Dear Ms. Romain: You received a glowing endorsement from Courtney Milan and I had to try this book out. While I am not sorry I read it, perhaps heightened expectations left me with a disappointed feeling during the book. I think, too, the book was a bit too lighthearted for me. I seem to be(…)

REVIEW: The Beginner’s Guide to Rakes by Suzanne Enoch

REVIEW: The Beginner’s Guide to Rakes by Suzanne Enoch

Dear Ms. Enoch: I’m not certain who named your book but I am convinced it is by someone who has never read it because you can tell by the first chapter that the heroine is no ingenue who needs lessons in handling men. The really wonderful thing about this book is the challenging heroine who(…)

REVIEW: Trencarrow Secret by Anita Davison

REVIEW: Trencarrow Secret by Anita Davison

“Isabel Hart is afraid of two things, the maze at Trencarrow where she got lost as a young child, and the lake where her brother David saved her from drowning in a boating accident. With her twenty-first birthday and the announcement of her engagement imminent, Isabel decides it is time for her to face her(…)

REVIEW: In Total Surrender by Anne Mallory

REVIEW: In Total Surrender by Anne Mallory

Dear Ms. Mallory, I have been anticipating the release of your novel, In Total Surrender, since I read about the Merrick brothers in your last effort, One Night Is Never Enough. There’s just something about a pair of intellectual thugs that gets my blood pumping. In Total Surrender is Andreas Merrick’s book. The one in(…)

REVIEW: Dark Mirror by Mary Jo Putney

REVIEW: Dark Mirror by Mary Jo Putney

Dear Ms. Putney, I have always enjoyed your romances, ever since I started reading romance nigh on six years ago. I particularly enjoyed The Marriage Spell, which was a hybrid of fantasy and regency—a hybrid that very much appealed to me. Although there is a tradition within YA and fantasy novels of depicting alternate histories(…)

REVIEW: The Dragon and The Pearl by Jeannie Lin

REVIEW: The Dragon and The Pearl by Jeannie Lin

Dear Ms. Lin: I’m thrilled that you are writing this series and thrilled that Harlequin is publishing it and giving us such in-your-face Asian covers instead headless bodies that hint at its Eastern origins. I am not super familiar with this area of history and I read this story more as if it were a(…)

REVIEW: Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath

REVIEW: Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath

Note to readers: This review contains SPOILERS. If you would like to read this book and prefer to remain spoiler-free, it may be best not to read this review. Dear Ms. Heath, I got this book from the library after a good friend of mine mentioned that it was one of her favorite books of(…)

Haiku Review: Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray

Haiku Review: Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray

(Lots of spoilers ahead – beware!)   What happened here, Dray? Your first book was so very good. This one screwed the pooch.   In first book, Selene takes control of her own fate ends on happy note   this book takes that book and pretty much destroys it I hated each page   On(…)