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

Dear Mrs. Stuart,

Boy howdy some of your earlier regencies, gothics and contemporaries sell for a mint. Are they worth it? Well, in this case, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause and this one is worth the money. It’s a light hearted romp with the proverbial regency characters of a spinster and a rake. Now really, what else should readers expect from the title?

The Spinster, Gillian Redford, is not a bluestocking but rather a woman who’s played nursemaid and housekeeper to her two older sisters and sister-in-law and is fast approaching thirty. Old-maidhood. While traveling back to the London home of her stiff-rumped brother, her carriage runs off the road and she ends up being rescued by The Rake, Ronan Patrick Blakley, the new Marquis of Herrington along with his drunk friend Vivien Peacock. After dropping Gilly off, the two make a wager that Ronan can get Gilly to fall for him within two months. He does but winds
up falling for her at the same time. After a flurry of plot twists, all’s well that ends well between the two plus we get a nice secondary romance for Gilly’s niece and …

Charlene,

I love this book! I love Luke and I love Jordan and I love how they interact. I love their families and I really, really love Luke’s bathroom. I want that bathroom, damn it. But WTF? I went to your website and Fictionwise looking to snag a cover download and the book isn’t being sold now. This sucks. This so totally sucks. I want people to read this book. Now. I’m so glad I bought it before whatever happened to it, happened to it.

Usually contemporary fake fiance(e) books make me cringe. But I hit the fake fiance(e) jackpot with my past two books. I actually believe in them now. How’s that for good writing? From Jordan’s initial personal ad for a man to help her battle her four older brothers’ attempts to set her up over the fall holidays to Luke’s response due to a similar need to dodge his family’s same idea, this book snagged me. Jordan is outrageous without going overboard while Luke’s reactions are stuffed shirt while being realistic. This is screwball comedy at its best.

The sexual tension and situation set ups are fantastic.

She …

Dear Ms Bassett (aka Elizabeth and Julia Bass),

The opening of “My Favorite Marquess” reminded me a lot of Laura Kinsale’s “My Sweet Folly.” Thank God your book stayed pretty good while that one ended up as a bit of a mess. Violet and Sebastian are two fantastic characters and the rest of the crew in this Regency Historical aren’t far behind.

I just knew when Violet headed off into the wilds of Cornwall to inspect the property she had wrested from the hands of her haughty ex-inlaws, that it would turn out to be far worse than anything she had anticipated after she refused to sell it to the equally haughty Marquess St. Just. I also knew that he would end up making her life hell while he tried to 1) get his hands on the seaside property in order to operate his spy ring and 2) check her out to make sure *she* wasn’t a spy for France.

Violet is funny, intelligent and a little bit vulnerable as the daughter of a merchant who’s married up in the world. I like that she manages to hold her own in the …

Dear Ms. TorinoTenorio:

Jorrie Spencer mentioned on her blog (in the comments no less) that your book was inching its way up the bestseller list at Samhain. I went to your blog and saw that the book was a friends to lovers theme. I love those. Plus it also had a Pygmalion thread. To quote Sybil. Squee.

Cassandra Bishop (or CB to nearly everyone) and Burke Halifax have been friends since they were kids. Over the years, Burke has had his girlfriends and CB fell for Luke Hanson and stuck by him despite frequent breakups. A couple of weeks before their wedding, Luke skips town, leaving a note for CB that he is gay and cannot live the lie anymore. CB takes time to recover from being jilted and humiliated. A year later and Luke shows back up in town with a fiance -a blonde bombshell. CB is crushed, not because she still loves Luke but because she begins to have doubts as to whether anyone views her as a woman. Luke claims that being with CB was being gay because she is not feminine in anyway.