Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Kitty (1946)
Genre: Period romance/comedy/drama
Grade: B-
Here’s a movie that isn’t afraid to let one see its main characters being less than chivalrous. It’s another movie I first saw years ago on AMC and hadn’t rewatched until recently. Though I enjoyed a lot of it, some aspects don’t work so well for me now.
Kitty (Paulette Goddard) [...]

Dear Ms. Milan,
I had been hearing positive buzz from several quarters for this, your debut romance, so I approached it with perhaps higher-than-usual hopes. Maybe because of those high hopes, the read started out a little rocky for me. The heroine and hero encounter each other in the first scene, and I found myself disappointed [...]

Dear Ms. Thornton,
I’m not quite sure how to classify this book. It has a romance in it but when a couple doesn’t meet face to face until two-thirds of the way through the story, and then only for a few hours, it makes me debate whether or not to call the book a romance. But, [...]

Dear Mrs. Moore,
After I had read “A Lover’s Kiss,” I fell in love with the secondary character of Lord “Buggy” Bromwell, friend to the hero of that book and the ones that preceded it. So when I checked out the August Harlequin Historical releases and realized that this was Buggy’s book, I pounced.
Justinian “Buggy” Bromwell [...]

Dear Ms. Cote,
After enjoying your novel “Her Captain’s Heart,” I was psyched when your publicist sent me an advanced copy of “Her Inheritance Forever.” And even more excited when I realized that it would tell part of the story of Texas independence that isn’t usually seen in romance novels – what happened after the Alamo.
The [...]

Dear Ms. Michaels,
I was tempted to go back and read this part of the “Gifts from a Billionaire” series after loving Leslie LaFoy’s “The Money Man’s Seduction.”
It’s fast, it’s funny and, though I wish some aspects of the book had been explored in greater depth, so far I’m 2 for 2 in liking this [...]

Dear Ms. Hart,
Bess Walsh needs time away from her unhappy marriage. She finds it at the beach house she inherited from her parents. There, in the water, Bess fantasizes about Nick, the boy she loved and lost twenty years before. She touches herself and soon she feels Nick touching her. The lovemaking [...]