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

Dear Ms. Ibbotson,

When Azteclady asked me to review one of your romances, I was both excited and challenged. You pack so many irresistible characters into less than three hundred pages that it is difficult to do justice to these delightful folk. And how would I explain the magic by which you can take me from a lump in the throat to tears of laughter in the space of a few sentences? And yet, how could I refuse? Your books are the meringue kisses of romance novels: simple and sophisticated at once; rich and sweet and awfully charming.

A Countess Below Stairs is no exception. The story takes place in 1919 and centers, as much as it does, on Anna Grazinsky, a Russian Countess. As a child, Anna is a joy to her parents, and though they shower her with gifts, she is so tenderhearted that she never becomes spoiled. Her father calls her his “little star,” but when he is killed in World War I, Anna’s heart, as well as her mother’s and her younger brother’s, are broken.

The family is dispossessed of their fortune when the servant …

Dear Mr. Mills,

Your first novel takes place in the summer of 1947 on Long Island, in and near the Hamptons, where the wealthy have summer homes. Not far from the Hamptons is Amagansett, a working class community. The two communities coexist side-by-side, but not without tension. Through political maneuverings in the state government, the wealthy are trying to take the fishing rights away from the local fishermen.

As the book opens two Amagansett fishermen, Conrad Labarde and Rollo Kemp, pull up something unexpected in their net: the body of a young woman in her twenties.

Both Conrad and Tom Hollis, the police officer who is sent to the scene, notice that the dead woman drowned while still wearing her earrings. And that makes both of them suspect foul play.

After investigating for a bit, Hollis identifies the woman as Lillian Wallace, daughter to a very wealthy businessman. Lillian’s grief-stricken brother Manfred is a man with political ambitions.

Why and how was Lillian murdered, and can the crime be proved? The main characters are Tom Hollis and Conrad Labarde, who both want to know the answers to these questions.

Hollis is a former New York City …