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

How many authors have a book with the gorgeous Cate Blanchett looking queenly with the words “Woman Warrior Queen?” None other than the equally gorgeous Tasha Alexander whose first love was Little House on the Prairie books. Alexander says in her bio that she became “an English major in order to have a legitimate excuse for spending all her time reading.”

Jayne is grateful for that choice because it ultimately led to Alexander writing some fantastic period mysteries. She has reviewed Alexander’s first two novels featuring young Victorian widow, Emily, and her instinctive mystery solving abilities : And Only to Deceive and A Poisoned Season. Alexander is a powerhouse of historical writing that brings to life the period drama that we hunger for when reading about those past glories.
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I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl, obsessed with reading and re-reading the Little House on the Prairie books. I wrote a number of very well-received short stories. Well-received, that is, by my parents. “The End Piece of Bread” is the only one I remember, and really, it’s best forgotten. I’d make …

Dear Ms Alexander,

I was delighted with my impulse buy of your first novel “And Only to Deceive.” Luckily for me I didn’t have to wait too long before book two in the series was released. Now all I can say is write quickly so I don’t have to mope too long before getting to read more about Lady Emily Ashton and her beau Colin Hargreaves.

London’s social season is in full swing, and the Victorian aristocracy can’t stop whispering about a certain gentleman who claims to be the direct descendant of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. But he’s not the only topic of wagging tongues. Drawing rooms, boudoirs, and ballrooms are abuzz with the latest news of an audacious cat burglar who has been making off with precious items that once belonged to the ill-fated queen.

Light gossip turns serious when the owner of one of the pilfered treasures is found murdered, and the mysterious thief develops a twisted obsession with Emily. But the strong-minded and fiercely independent Emily will not be shaken. It will take all of her considerable wit and perseverance to unmask …

Dear Ms Alexander,

Victorian era books are just not my favorites. I freely admit that is due to shallow reasons such as the ugly way most men wore their facial hair and the drabness of their clothes, ghastly women’s hairstyles (all slicked down with sugar water) and the image that I have of a repressed society. Yeah, very shallow. Yet something about the blurb of your first book caught my interest. Young woman with hidden depths, mystery, lost love and a neat cover (you already know I’m shallow).

Emily has almost finished her two years of obligatory mourning for her husband. She’s endured months of condolences and withdrawal from society as it otherwise ignores the young widow, as is only proper. Society deems that she must at least pretend to be prostrate with grief no matter if she really isn’t. After all, she barely knew the man and she only married him because a) she’s the daughter of an earl and therefore must make a good society marriage and b) she desperately wanted to escape her overbearing mother. She’s spent her mourning period doing precisely what she wants and enjoying her new found freedom. Now that …