May 21 2012
Dear Mr. Aaronovitch, Back in March, I read and reviewed your terrific debut, Midnight Riot (Rivers of London in the UK), an urban fantasy/police procedural narrated by an endearing London police constable named Peter Grant. Peter is a new recruit in a secret (and very small) department of the London Metropolitan Police which investigates supernatural [...]
Apr 27 2012
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) Genre: Romantic Comedy Grade: C This is a movie I wanted to love, yearned to love, and hoped to love. Unfortunately, I didn’t. First, some background. Back around 2003, a friend of mine who lived in Berkshire at the time, told me about a wonderful bookstore she found [...]
Mar 29 2012
Dear Ms. Zink, I admit it. The lovely cover is what made me stop and give your new novel a second look. I’m a sucker for pretty covers, and I thought this one was highly effective for the genre. If only I could say the same for the content. Helen Cartwright is the sheltered daughter [...]
Mar 21 2012
Dear Mr. Aaronovitch, I’ve been recommending enough books here lately that I have started to worry that my grades are overgenerous. But when a book is as much fun as your debut urban fantasy/police procedural, Midnight Riot, what is a reviewer to do? I picked up Midnight Riot (also known as Rivers of London in [...]
Jan 31 2012
Dear Ms. Callihan, While historical romances aren’t my favored genre, I do love paranormal romances. If I pick up a historical, more often than not there’s a whiff of the paranormal in it. I remember first hearing about your debut novel several months ago and it sounded interesting enough that it stayed on my radar. [...]
Nov 9 2011
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 [...]
Sep 15 2011
Dear Ms. Pierce, I read your first novel, 666 Park Avenue, earlier this year. In it, readers were introduced to architect Jane Boyle who gets swept up in a whirlwind romance with the man of her dreams, only to discover that not only does she come from a long line of witches, she just married [...]
Aug 31 2011
Dear Ms. Morgan, I had started reading the first book in the Countess Ashby de la Zouche mystery series a few weeks ago but had put it down for other books. With an indefinite power outage from Hurricane Irene mucking up my day, I decided to apply myself and finish it. Once I refreshed myself [...]
Jul 7 2011
Dear Ms. Chase: “He truly did love her. After all she’d told him. He truly believed she could do anything.” That’s an amazing showing of love. He believed she could do anything. The Duke of Clevedon falls so in love with Marcelline Noirot, shopkeeper, that he believed she could convince the entire world that they [...]
Jun 27 2011
Dear Mr. Watson, Your first novel, a psychological thriller titled Before I Go to Sleep, has garnered considerable attention. The cover of my advanced reader’s edition proclaims that rights have been sold in over thirty countries, and movie rights sold to acclaimed director Ridley Scott. There are blurbs from Tess Gerritsen and Dennis Lehane calling [...]
Mar 16 2011
Dear Ms. Balogh, For two whole weeks everything that happened in the Maynard household revolved around one fact: Felicity was coming home. So begins The Trysting Place, one of your early, out-of-print trad regencies (and a prequel to The Notorious Rake). I loved the opening of this story, in which we see eighteen year old [...]
Nov 11 2010
Dear Ms. Fielding, For a moment, I thought that this was part of some Harlequin series with the set up that the heroine loses one red stiletto and finds her HEA from it. Then after checking, I realized that “Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto” is not part of the same series as another book I [...]
Sep 3 2010
Run Fatboy Run (2007) Genre: Comedy, Romance, Sport Grade: B- So I’ve started a quest to see more Simon Pegg movies and put this one in my Netflix queue. It’s got a lower star ranking than does “Hot Fuzz” or “Shaun of the Dead” so I went into it with lower expectations. Luckily for me, [...]
Jun 3 2010
Dear Ms. Harrington, Celebrity chefs and cook off challenges aren’t my passion. I like to cook but hate to clean up so having one hanging around my kitchen to do my scut work for me would be nice, though. And if he looked like I imagine Brett Cameron does, that would be a bonus because [...]
Mar 2 2010
Warning: The following review contains some spoilers. Dear Ms. Balogh, Your books have been an acquired taste for me. My early experiences of them were like my first taste of sushi. They too, seemed like something unusual, intense and raw, to which my palate was unaccustomed. At first I wasn’t sure they would appeal to [...]
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