Dear Ms. Ross:
I wanted to like this book. It promised to be a blend of romance and action featuring a strong female character.  Caitlin Cavanaugh is the FBI agent in charge of an investigation of a serial sniper in Somersett, South Carolina.  On the one hand, I liked it better than the last Ross book [...]

Angelo’s Captive Virgin by India Grey.  I know that some well known authors like Grey’s voice but the doormat to asshole ratio is very high in this book, leaving me dissatisfied.  Anna, or Lady Roseanna Delafield, is forced to sell her family estate.  The family has fallen on hard times and while her [...]

Dear Ms. Janzen:
I really liked the first Steele Street stories. One thing, in particular, is that they sounded very modern. Over time, however, because the books are similar to one another, I stopped being impresed by the fresh tone because, well, it wasn’t fresh anymore. And with extended exposure [...]

Dear Ms. London:
I can’t remember the last time I read a Julia London book. I thought that your books were more, well, flighty or frivolous. Maybe I got your name confused in my head with another author which happens not infrequently for me. In any event, I liked the [...]

Dear Ms. Meyer,
While I didn’t think it was perfect, I did enjoy your first young adult novel, Twilight. So when my fellow blogger Jia was unable to get too far into The Host, a genre-bending speculative romantic thriller and your first book for adults, I agreed to give it a try. [...]

Dear Ms. Bunkley:
I was really intrigued by how this story began. The heroine, Riana, and hero, Andre, met in an Small Business Administration class in Houston. Riana planned to return to San Antonio and didn’t want to continue a long distance relationship. Andre took her denials to be that [...]

Dear Ms. Cullen:
This book opens really well. The heroine, Kate McAuley, finds a man at her door, begging to come in. We soon find out it is her ex-lover, Lucas Barone, who disappeared 18 months* ago. He just walked out the door one day and never came back. [...]

Dear Ms. Salvatore,
I don’t think it’s unfair to say there are a lot of vampire books out there. Sometimes I feel like they should get their own category separate from paranormal books in general. But even so, I think your debut injected some light humor into a subgenre dominated by [...]

Dear Ms. Smith:
This was an interesting departure from the historical paranormals you’ve written and I think the setting and characters are a good fit for you. The voice sounds very natural. Before I Wake is more of an urban fantasy with a dash of romance than a true romance. It [...]

Dear Ms. James:
It is tempting to compare Duchess By Night with those Shakespearean cross-dressing comedies, and indeed, there are some superficial similarities among the novel, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It. But it is not fair to push the comparison too far, because Duchess By Night is a different type of romantic [...]

Dear Ms. Drake,
I’m afraid I’m reaching my saturation point for urban fantasy. If I never have to read about another demon, werewolf, or vampire ever again, I will be a happy woman. It’s not so much that I hate the trademark species of the paranormal subgenres; it’s the fact that [...]

Dear Ms. Laverentz,
Recently I read one of Jane’s reviews of a sports themed novel (using football instead of hockey). You use the world of the NHL as the background for your hero, Eric Cameron. I’ll be honest and admit that I know just enough about hockey and medicine, the background of the heroine Dr. Emily [...]

Dear Ms. Pierce:
You are a new to me author and I have to say that this book has me conflicted. On the one hand it contains a lot of trite writing and plot elements: the merry band of friends, their loving wives who appeared in previous stories and are now [...]

Dear Ms. Enoch:
I really adored After the Kiss and I was hopeful, given the prominence that Bram was given in AtK that this would be his book. However, it is not. This is the story of Lieutenant Colonel Phineas Bromley who ran away from the world and joined the Royal Dragoons [...]

Dear Ms. Medeiros:
Although I have Heather and Velvet sitting on a bookshelf in my house, I have not yet read it. In fact, Some Like It Wicked is my very first Teresa Medeiros book. That may have been a good thing, as I really had no expectations, but it also turned into a [...]

Dear Ms. Denison:
I think I read a Janelle Denison book before. Maybe in a category format? I can’t recall. Wild for Him is the seventh book in a Wilde series. The previous six books featured Wilde family members and this one starred Ben Cabrera, a friend of Joel Wilde. [...]

Dear Ms. Mallery:
I’ve gone on a bit of a Mallery glom and the readers here will have to suffer along with me. Delicious is the second book I read in the Buchanan series. I read book 2, Irresistible, first. I’m not sure whether knowing the outcome of the story in [...]

Dear Readers,
Since this review covers my responses to nine short stories and two novellas, I’ve decided that for the sake of clarity, it would be simper to address this letter to you rather than to eleven authors.
Tangle is an anthology featuring a variety of same-sex love stories. All the romances here have two heroes, [...]

Dear Ms. Roberts:
Usually your single title books work for me and work well. It’s the single titles, not the JD Robb books or the categories, that made me a fan. Unfortunately, I never quite grasped hold of the characters in Tribute. I like Cilla well enough but Ford, well, I did [...]

Note: We usually have a first sale post Friday morning and I hope to still post one today.
Dear Ms. Griffin,
Your second book, “One Wrong Step” came to me in the form of an arc. An incomplete arc since the last bit of the story appears to be missing. However, the [...]

Dear Ms. Novak:

I liked the first book in this series, Trust Me, and I’ll definitely read the last book in this trilogy but the second entry, Stop Me, had issues that were difficult for me to overcome. The suspense part of the book was very good but the romance felt forced.
Jasmine Stratford receives a [...]

Dear Mrs. Connolly,
As always, I look forward to your Georgian historicals. In the past, I’ve found them entertaining, informative, moving. When Samhain offered us their new releases, I eagerly snapped this one up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for me as well as most of your past historical books.
Has your hero Nick Seyton not heard the [...]

Dear Ms. Dodd:
You are a very polished and talented writer and this entry into the Darkness Chosen series is as fast paced and readable as the others. Adrik Wilder left his family at age 17, became one of the most feared mercenaries in the world, leading a tribe of outlaws, all vying [...]

Dear Ms. Liu,
I’m a fan of your Dirk and Steele series, so I’ve been looking forward to your urban fantasy debut for a long time. I’ve always found your paranormal romances to be very action packed so I assumed the transition to urban fantasy would be an easy one. Good [...]

Dear Ms. Malone:
Thank you for submitting your debut Samhain Red Hot, “Lady Sings the Blues,” a short story featuring an interracial Romance between club owner Alina Gabriel and Blues musician Joshua Hanover. I am a big fan of short stories and novellas, because when they are done well, they are a perfect portion of [...]