Jayne
 Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break then started back again about 10 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there's no TSTL characters and is currently easing back into paranormals.
Dear Ms. Justiss,
 You’ve been writing Regency set stories for years now so by now, I’m sure you’re more than familiar with all the conventions, the standard plots, the trope characters, all the things we’re used to seeing in this historical category. Well, I am too so when I come across something different, I’m liable to sit up, smile and say, “Yes!”
I’m sure that Sir Edward Greaves was, even if only briefly, a minor character in your book, “An Unconventional Match.” Alas, I don’t recall him. Shame on me as he’s a nice guy. As he, himself, thinks, he doesn’t have the lofty title of his friend Nicky Stanhope, the Marquess of Englemere, or the money his financial wizard friend Hal Waterman does but he’s not a bad catch on the marriage mart. So far, his attempts to find a wife he can admire as well as love, and who he thinks would enjoy living with him in the country, have not panned out but hope springs eternal.
In the meantime, he’s intrigued by a little property owned by Nicky. It’s far from Nicky’s other holdings and has currently …
Okay people, listen up. This is the last book in the series and the whole thing is a spoiler for the first three books. You have been warned.
Dear Ms Hoyt,
 Capturing my attention for an entire series before I’ve even read the first book is something. Me remembering that a new book in a series is coming out without having someone remind me of it is something. Keeping my attention and enthusiasm for a series all the way into book four is something. So don’t be bummed that the grade for this one is lower than most of the others.
At last, here we are at the final book of the series when the bombshell, which was hurled at us in the preview included at the end of the previous book, explodes. For the length of the other three books and all during the seven years since the horrible events at Spinners Falls in the Colonies, everyone has known that Captain Lord Reynaud Hope, heir the Earldom of Blanchard, is dead. The pitifully few fellow Englishmen taken with him as captives by the Indian allies of the French saw poor Reynaud die. Two …
Dear Ms. Schmidt,
 I am coming to look forward to your many novels set on the Massachusetts coastal islands. Plus you use the turn-of-the-century (turn of the last century I should say) era which is something I’d love to see more of.
Nola Burns initially appears to be an uptight, dried up spinster who’s as rigid as her corset while Harrison Starbuck has been known as a scamp and a carefree rogue since his boyhood. Nola’s hardworking, having taken over the care of her siblings at the death of their parents and since run the teahouse which was her childhood home. Harry is well off due to his instinct for a good business deal. Now they’re about to clash over Harry’s latest venture.
The beachfront teahouse is the perfect location for Harry’s planned luxury hotel to accompany the cabaret he’s building to entertain the locals and summer tourists upon whom they all depend. But it’s all Nola has and she’s not going to sell it or see her business ruined without a fight.
When Nola allows the actors to stay in her house in order to fill in for the summer …
Rachel and the Stranger (1948)
Genre: Historical frontier romance
Grade: B
Here’s another movie from ‘way back when’ that I first saw years ago courtesy of the AMC TV channel. In my quest for movies to write Friday Film reviews on, it came to mind. When I noticed that it’s going to be shown on TCM in early November, I hauled ass to my stack of old VHS tapes and pulled it out. Thank goodness it’s being broadcast as I’ve learned the hard way that VHS tapes are not eternal.
The film could also be called, in true romance book fashion, “The Indentured Bride.” We’re on the Ohio frontier – exact time never specified – and David Harvey (William Holden) is in need of some feminine influence around the cabin. His beloved wife Susan died recently and since then, the homestead is going to hell and his young son (Gary Gray) is taking full advantage of the lack of supervision to ignore his schoolwork in favor of going fishing and playing with his hound dogs. But it’s not until his friend, and former suitor for Susan’s hand in marriage, Jim Fairways (Robert Mitchum) takes a break from his wandering ways to pay them a …
Dear Ms. Ford,
 Sometimes I’m in the mood for a nice, gentle story to cuddle up with. A story that features good people who act sensibly without throwing snits over Big Misunderstandings. A story about families who get along. A story set in small town America but one which doesn’t denigrate big cities. Or have characters who all have double first names. “Her Best Bet” fits all them all.
Izzy Gordon faces the fact that in the ten years since she graduated from high school, she’s let go of her major dream. But is it too late for her to break from the perfect life her parents have mapped out for her and reclaim her goal to direct movies? With the help of her room mate, she decides to shoot a documentary for a contest and what better place then at a lake resort in Wisconsin which her parents own. Well, they don’t own the buildings, just the land, and the 100 year lease is ending soon.
Gib Murphy’s family has run the White Bear Lodge for almost 100 years but changes are coming fast. The place has gotten run down and …
WARNING: spoilers for the first four books are impossible to avoid.
Dear Ms. Kenner,
 I’ve been addicted to this series since it first started four books ago. While some things have stayed the same, others, thank goodness, have changed and evolved as the series has progressed. And if there’s one thing I can count on, it’s a bang up finish with a “to be continued…” bombshell to make me frantic for the next installment.
Kate Connor, level five Demon Hunter, is once again faced with the powers of Darkness in her otherwise quiet CA beach town of San Diablo. But now her secret identity, which she struggled to hide during past books, is not so secret anymore. Her almost fifteen year old daughter knows, her best friend knows and now her second husband, Stuart, knows. Oh and her first husband, Eric, who was murdered five years ago then returned to her in the body of another man and who is now known in town only as a teacher at their daughter’s school, also knows. Yeah, it’s a lot to keep straight.
The book starts with the usual attack of a demon who utters cryptic threats …
Dear Ms. Michaels,
 If the purpose of the novella “How to Woo a Spinster” was to get me to buy this full length novel, it worked. But as I started to read How to Tempt a Duke, I wondered if I would get through it. Let’s see…Regency era, Duke hero, feisty younger sister, heroine with Dark Secret in her past who starts to bicker with the hero as soon as he shows his face at the old homestead. Hmmmmm, where have I read all this too many times to count?
Rafe Daughtry, son of the younger son, never expected to inherit the Dukedom. After all, his uncle was healthy and the heir and a spare were still up to their wicked, disgusting ways. That is until all three were drowned – along with some barques of frailty – in a yachting accident. Once word finally caught up with him in Paris, Rafe decided to stay and escort Bonaparte to Elba before heading home.
When he arrives in England, it’s to discover that his newly married aunt has left his two much younger sisters in the charge of his old neighborhood friend, Charlie. And hasn’t …
How did I miss this? Srsly, where was I? Dunno. I’ve heard about the “holding up the boom box” scene. I’ve seen it on so many “Gawd, these are the best films evah!” lists and heard from so many people that “you have to see this film, I mean it!” that I should have seen it before now. But it took doing these reviews and scanning Top Films lists for more film ideas to finally make me do it.
No one thinks Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) and Diane Court (Ione Skye) will ever last. In fact, everyone’s surprised they ever got together in the first place. Including them. The first time Lloyd asks Diane out, she says yes then has to check their recent senior high school yearbook to even know who it is she just agreed to go to a party with. But as their relationship progresses, they find something special. She feels totally comfortable with him and he starts to trust in himself because of her.
Then things start to go wrong. Her father (John Mahoney) is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the time before she’s due to leave for a prestigious fellowship in England is …
Dear Mr. Nicolls,
 We get lots of arcs and finished copies of books offered to us at Dear Author. Some I am anticipating, others I recognize the author’s name and in a few cases, I’ve never heard of either book or author. Your debut novel, “The Good Mayor” falls into the latter category. I say this not to denigrate it but to point out that I had no idea what I would be getting myself into when I started it. The US cover of the book enchanted me. When Jane sent this in a box of other books, that is what made me pull it out and check the back blurb.
In a busy little city in a forgotten corner of the Baltic, in an office on the square, the beloved mayor of Dot lies on his office floor, peering beneath his door. Tibo Krovic has come to work from his house down at the end of a blue-tiled path. He’s taken, as usual, the tram seven stops, and walked the final two. He’s stopped for strong Viennese coffee. And now Tibo Krovic is looking at the perfectly beautiful feet of his voluptuous,
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Dear Ladies,
 It’s taken me far too long to finally review this offering which I got in ::winces:: April. Bad moi. But here it is at last.
Once Burned by Emery Sanborne
Dear Ms Sanborne,
Hot firefighters, hot attraction, hot sex. “Once Burned” has all three. Plus lots of local Philadelphia color. Andreas Sullivan has tried to date a fellow firefighter before and all it got him was trouble and heartache. Will this time be any different?
Andreas and Bobby seem to have had some problems with being accepted as gay both by their families and by society. Andreas has been in more than one fight though he’s decided to try and shrug off antigay comments. One of his brothers wasn’t totally accepting of his lifestyle though now it appears that the brother is trying. Bobby’s father, a former Army man, only came to accept Bobby’s sexual orientation when faced with the greater disappointment of his son joining the Marines. Both are experienced and have had long and short relationships though there’s not as much about Bobby’s backstory and history as Andreas’s.
The firefighter stuff adds some color and shading to the story and serves as the …
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