We here at Dear Author lament the number of historicals featuring spies. Surely not every titled gentleman and some not titled were spies in historical England. Given the number of spies that formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the U.S., though, we could be totally wrong. Thursday saw the release of [...]

Dear Ms. Bourne,
I was enthralled with the first half of your recent book, The Spymaster’s Lady. A smart hero, a plucky (in a good way) heroine and beautiful prose had the book well on the road to being a solid A for me. Unfortunately, in the second half of the book the heroine underwent [...]

Dear Ms. Brand,
I’ve been on a WWII kick the last few weeks which is what made me focus on the blurb for “Blind Instinct.” The heroine obtains a Nazi codebook that’s going to lead to all kinds of secrets and threats to her life. This is what brings her together with the hero as [...]

Dear Ms McCabe,
Happy days, it’s something different. Tudor England with a French heroine and Russian hero. Definitely not the same old Regency we get offered everyday. Thank you Harlequin Historical.
Sinful Alliance starts out wonderfully with a Venetian brothel scene showdown between two spies. One of them knows what’s up but the other [...]

Dear Ms. Bourne,
It’s taken me a while to get around to reading your debut, The Spymaster’s Lady. Back in the winter, Robin asked me if I would review it in a conversational review with her before your next book came out, and I promised that I would. When I got to reading [...]

Dear Ms. Osterlund,
When I received this book from Jane, I was excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book solely about a princess and I admit I had a soft spot for them when I was younger. And not only did Aurelia feature a crown princess, it also had the spymaster’s son [...]

Dear Ms. Willig,
Oh, what I’ve been missing by not reading your books earlier. Now having devoured “Pink Carnation” and the newest in the series, “The Seduction of the Crimson Rose,” I’ve been sucked in by your witty style, your fun characters and the entire world of early 19th century flower spies. What I still wonder [...]

Dear Ms Willig,
Of course I’ve heard of your series of novels set during the Napoleanic Wars featuring dashing spies named after flowers. Why hadn’t I read one until now….honestly I don’t know. Perhaps I thought the modern bits featuring a English history major trying to track down the identities of the spies was just too [...]

Dear Ms Bourne,
My blogging partner Jane and I usually have similar tastes in historical novels. Usually, I say, because we’ve been known to disagree at times. And it’s those times that I almost hate to do a review and have to say, sorry but I think this one sucked. I’m glad to say that this [...]

Dear Ms Carlyle,
I haven’t read many of your books (though I do have most of them on various TBR mountains scattered throughout my house) but the ones I’ve tried, I really liked. Which is why I was disappointed with the main characters and plot of this one.
The notorious Marquis of Nash is a creature [...]

Dear Ms Munro,
For a book as short as this is, with three main characters, lots secondary characters and several long sex scenes, I should have gotten the feeling that every word was being used for a purpose, that every scene counted, that maximum use was made of the entire story. Instead, what I felt [...]

Dear Ms. Putney,
This book has been mentioned as being one of the weakest of this series (the Fallen Angels) and I can see why. I found myself far more interested in Robin and Maggie’s relationship, and for that matter Helene and von Fehrenbach’s relationship, than in seeing Rafe and Maggie get back together. Heck, I [...]