Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Dear Ms. Chase,

Your books have provided me with hours of happy reading over the years. I rejoiced when you began writing the Carsington series and for the most part have enjoyed them all. Not Quite A Lady will easily take its place beside them but the grade will Not Quite be up to Lord Perfect.

Lady Charlotte Hayward has made a career out of not getting married. Which isn’t as easy as it might first appear. She’s the cherished only daughter of a wealthy Marquess, she’s beautiful, charming, friendly, nice to those to whom it’s hard to be nice, good natured and if she’s headed towards the ripe old age of 27, her good points still outweigh this. As a matter of fact, it takes a lot of work for Lady Charlotte to not get caught at not getting married. After all, it’s what the daughters of the ton do. Her doting father is baffled but determined his daughter should know wedded happiness. What he doesn’t know, and what Charlotte and her youthful stepmama have taken great pains to ensure he doesn’t know, is the real reason why …

Dear Ms. Chase,

I haven't always gushed over your books. Captives of the Night failed to captivate me, and it was a struggle for me to finish The Lion's Daughter. I even admit that although I enjoyed Lord of Scoundrels, I've also puzzled over the fact that so many readers consider it the very best example of writing in the romance genre.

But when I first read Mr. Impossible, and then Miss Wonderful (ideally they should be read in the reverse order), I was thrilled to discover that like a fine champagne, your writing seems to have improved with the passage of time. It still has its effervescence, but its flavor has matured and deepened, I am happy to say.

Lord Perfect is not only the title of the third book in your series about the Carsington brothers, it is also the nickname given to the novel's male protagonist, Benedict Carsington, because he is so very proper and respectable. As the book begins, Benedict, Viscount Rathbourne, has brought his nephew Peregrine to an exhibition of Egyptian antiquities. Though he is not immediately aware of it, he is being more-or-less ogled by …