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

Dear Ms. MacNish:

Veiled Passions is the first book of yours I’ve read, and perhaps because of that, this is a very difficult review for me to write.  I wanted so much to like this book, because it has a number of elements I look for in Romance:  settings other than Regency England (this book is set in 1777 Venice and England), a seemingly hefty word count, a heroine who actually comes from a loving, intact family.  But for a number of reasons, some of which I still haven’t identified, I just did not connect emotionally to Veiled Passions or find myself engaged in the main couple’s rocky journey to love.

On the surface, Kieran Mullen has just about everything going for her:  beauty, a close, loving family, a wealthy, honorable, and protective brother who also happens to be a duke, and bright marriage prospects.  But she bears the scars of a three-year-old trauma that halted her emotional development and turned her into a veritable recluse.  Her family is baffled and concerned, tolerating her eccentricities and allowing her freedom from meeting societal expectations.  And when, at a party in Venice, she faces a specter …

Dear Ms. Chase,

Huzzah! I’m definitely on a roll with you. Last year there was [insert Lady title] and this year it’s “Your Scandalous Ways.” Tired of Regency set books? Tired of English gentleman spies? Well, I would have said so before reading this book. After finishing it…nah, not so much. And a real courtesan heroine? Well, the uncontrived ones are rare as hens teeth and thus I savored this book even more.

I like how the opening scene lets us know what we’re going to get. Some suspense, some humor, some violence, some sex, some ‘oh, the things I do for England.” James Cordier is a spy hero but a vastly cynical and jaded one. I enjoy how he pokes fun at himself and has a realistic grasp on how his superiors view him. He’s useful, he’s intelligent, but he’s ultimately expendable if he gets caught. So…he doesn’t get caught. He does what they want and hopes that soon, he’ll be finished with it all and can return home. I love the sly dig he takes at Regency book conventions when he goes on about what he hopes to go home to: dancing with white …

Jane:

At the beginning of Lord of Scoundrels, a book that has been in print since its first publication in 1995, Lord Dain meets Jessica Trent for the first time
She was not classic English perfection, but she was some sort of perfection and, being neither blind nor ignorant, Lord Dain generally recognized quality when he saw it.
That statement fairly sums up my experience with Your Scandalous Ways. It is a kind of perfection, romance perfection perhaps. Francesca Bonnard is a high class courtesan who was married to John Bonnard, a highly ranked politician in England. He divorced her, threw out into the street, and hoped she would end up used and diseased and possibly dead. The only course open for Francesca was the oldest profession but she parlayed that into being one of the most famous and most expensive whores alive. Her protectors were princes, dukes, dignitaries. Every notch in her bed post became a weapon in her correspondence to her former husband. Younger sons of England’s titled set, like James Cordier, simply did not have enough cache.

Of course, James Cordier is not an ordinary younger son. He’s a spy, …

Dear Ms Thornton,

Though I’d never tried any of your books before, I took a chance on this one when I saw it was set in Restoration Era Venice and England. Alas, it turned out to be a style of novel I’ve lost all patience for. The hero and heroine are torn apart years before by the treacherous actions of a slavering villain overcome with lust for the heroine. For 8 years, the hero then believes the worst of the heroine. Then when they finally met again he accuses her, insults her, manipulates her into his power, treats her like dirt and ensures that anyone else who might have come to her rescue believes the worst of her. And has the nerve to still accuse her of lying to him and treating him badly once he knows the truth. Here’s the woman he claims to have loved yet he’ll more easily believe the lies told to him by someone he doesn’t even know rather than listen to her. Bastard. I read the first 100 pages then flipped to the last 50 to see if his …