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

Dear Ms. Moorcroft,
Since I’ve been having good luck with contemporary British authors lately, I decided to check out your latest book, “Starting Over.” Things were bubbling along nicely until right at the end when…well, we’ll get to that in a minute.
Tess Randell is starting over. Her fiance dumped her by email just days before their [...]

Warning: The following review contains some spoilers.
Dear Ms. Balogh,
Your books have been an acquired taste for me. My early experiences of them were like my first taste of sushi. They too, seemed like something unusual, intense and raw, to which my palate was unaccustomed. At first I wasn’t sure they would appeal [...]

Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991)
Genre: Romance
Grade: B+
This is a film that I had loved in the past yet hadn’t watched in years. I think I was almost afraid to watch it again. Like when you have a favorite book you haven’t read in ages and you don’t want to risk the magic being spoilt. But when [...]

Ms. Linden:
I came away from this book thinking that I should have liked the story more than I did and I wasn’t sure why.  Your prose is good, as always.  You have thoughtful characters.   I liked the premise – the story of a man whose honor was totally stripped away by a false accusation [...]

Jack and Sarah (1995)
Genre: Dramedy, romance
Grade: B
Richard E. Grant can do neurotic better than almost any actor I know. And this film affords him ample opportunity to show this. But don’t think it’s a total downer as he also gets to display his comic timing and is backed up by some of the best talent [...]

Dear Ms. Richardson,
Recently I reviewed The Countess’s Client, the first Spice Brief in your Countess Trilogy. I enjoyed the story, and especially its haughty narrator, Anna, Countess von Esslin, a young widow with a taste for good sex on her own terms. To read more about her, I purchased An Impolite Seduction, the [...]

Dear Ms. Townend,
I’ve enjoyed several of your other books for Harlequin Historicals and was delighted when you contacted me offering a copy of your latest in the “Wessex Weddings” series for possible review. (Note: FTC discloser out of the way!) And the heroine is a Fallen Woman too. Even better. At first I didn’t [...]