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

Dear Ms. London:

I can’t remember the last time I read a Julia London book. I thought that your books were more, well, flighty or frivolous. Maybe I got your name confused in my head with another author which happens not infrequently for me. In any event, I liked the plot of this story even though I thought the execution was wobbly in places.

Nathan Grey, Earl of Lindsey, and his wife, Evelyn, separated three years ago. He stayed at the Abbey, the Lindsey family estate for over 400 years, and Evelyn went to London. If you read the dedication, the reader gets a clue to why that is. Nathan and Evelyn lost their son and their marriage, already on shaky ground due to Evelyn’s youthfulness and Nathan’s desire that his pre marriage life not change, fell apart. Nathan turned the Abbey into a house of ill repute full of gaming and whoring. Evelyn became the Lady of the Bedchamber to Princess Mary and has lived a fairly virtuous life during the three year separation.

It is brought to Nathan’s attention that his wife …

Dear Ms. Callen:

I really liked Viscount in Her Bedroom. I appreciate that you try to tackle some serious problems. Viscount featured a blind hero. This one tried to tackle too many issues: gambling, blackmail, a girl who flirts too much, the devastated mother who shuns society, grief, etc. Ultimately, my real problem was the hero.

Grace Banbury’s family is in financial dire straights. Her mother and brother have serious gambling problems to the point that all of their property is gambled away except for Grace’s dowry. Grace goes to London to seek out her brother and see if there can’t be something done to save the Banbury family when she meets Daniel Throckmorten. Daniel has won the deed to her family’s London townhome in a game with her mother along with a valuable violen. Daniel and Grace enter into a wager where Daniel has two weeks to seduce Grace, because he can seduce anyone.

Let me be honest here. Is there anything heroic or even sexy about a man who intends to ruin a woman’s life by making her a whore just …

It seems pretty innocuous but to those in the business, doing a little photoshop editing of a journalism photo is pretty egregious. Allan Detrich, formerly of the Toledo Blade, was found to have photoshopped prints submitted for publication. Most of the editing was done to remove backgrounds according to Detrich.

Two Pulitzer Prizes are awarded to photojournalism, Breaking News and Feature Photography. I’m having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around why this is such a bad thing but I get the point from those in the know that it is.