Apr 9 2012
And on the One-Thousand-and-Second night, Scheherazade told this story… By day, Taqla uses her forbidden sorcery to move freely about the city of Damascus in the guise of an old sage. Her true identity known only by her faithful servant woman, Taqla is content with the comfortable, if restrictive, life that keeps her safe from [...]
Apr 6 2012
Dear Ms. Nicholas, Perhaps I wasn’t the best choice to review your latest novel Everything You’ve Got. I’m married to a physician and have worked in and around the medical field for most of my adult life. Your heroine, twenty-seven (I think) year old Dr. Kat Dayton, struck me as unbelievably immature and the problems [...]
Mar 12 2012
Dear Ms. Knox: I received a number of recommendations for this story and the recommenders were correct. Ride with Me was right up my alley. It was a well paced, contemporary featuring a non clingy heroine and a caretaker hero set on a bike ride across America. The only downside was that Tom, in particular, came [...]
Jan 2 2012
Dear Ms. Marvel, Why did I decide to try your novella? It sounded cute, it has a sorta Christmas-y theme, and …..well, that’s it, actually. Yes, I know it’s now after Christmas but it’s still the Holiday Season so I figure I’m still good. Right? Darcy Burkell and James Jones grew up together but both [...]
Nov 22 2011
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 [...]
Nov 18 2011
Dear Ms. Flynn, Harlequin’s Treasury reissues are allowing me the relatively easy opportunity of trying some authors completely new to me without having to laboriously track down their OOP books. While scanning the offerings at their website, your book “40 Tons of Trouble” caught my eye because of the heroine’s occupation. I can’t recall ever [...]
Nov 14 2011
Dear Ms. Phillips, I wanted to read this book because of the Tudor time period and the fact that the hero is not only a commoner but a bastard as well. Also, I had heard good things about your Harlequin Historicals of the 90s. It’s slightly bawdy for the time with Dicken doing his share [...]
Nov 4 2011
The Sure Thing (1985) Genre: Coming of age romance Grade: B Once I’d seen “Say Anything,” I knew I’d eventually have to finally, after all these years, watch this whole movie. Yep, I’d seen bits and pieces of it on TV but always ended up flipping the channel, maybe because I’d never seen it from [...]
Aug 19 2011
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) Genre: Western/Action/Road Romance Grade: B It recently dawned on me that I haven’t reviewed all that many Westerns. They’re just not the first genre of films I think of when I’m looking for romance. So in an effort to remedy that I give you “Two Mules for Sister Sara” [...]
Aug 18 2011
Dear Readers. As part of our Georgette Heyer week here, I’ve decided to do lightning reviews of Heyer’s very early series. This series includes Heyer’s first runaway bestseller, the first Regency Romance evah, one of the most well-researched books about Waterloo evah, iconic heroes and the cross-dressing heroines who shoot them (well, not quite), duels, [...]
May 27 2011
The third book in my class on Georgette Heyer is Sylvester. We’ve had the founding Regency romance, Regency Buck, and Cotillion, the book that makes fun of the tropes Regency Buck establishes. I chose Sylvester for our third book because I love it and because I love how Heyer again plays with the construction of [...]
Jan 13 2011
Dear Ms. Monroe: One thing that I often find lacking in romances is seeing the actual courtship, particularly if you read paranormal romances with soulmate stories. I think that is why I like the friends to lovers trope or the marriage of convenience trope because we get to see the two characters navigate from viewing [...]
May 12 2010
Dear Ms Rossi, I’ll be honest and say that it’s the slight resemblance to the plot of “Romancing the Stone” which got me to look at then buy your book, “Along Came Quinn.” I’m a sucker for that film and for adventurous road romances. Danger, villains, treasure, jungle rot and watching a hero and heroine [...]
Apr 28 2010
Dear Ms. Duran, Since publishing your first romance in 2008, you have quickly become one of my favorite and most dependable authors; I have not given any of your first three books a grade lower than an A-. So I looked forward to Wicked Becomes You with a fair amount of anticipation. The book opens [...]
Apr 27 2010
Dear Ms. Callen: I admit I never thought I was going to make it out of the first chapter. The setup was so farcical. Three friends are in a gentleman’s club where a nude painting is hung. The nude is said to be of a lady of a ton. Conveniently three young men appear in [...]
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