I will say this for Nan Ryan – she knows how to keep a plot moving along. The characters may all be paper-thin, and even the ostensible hero and heroine are disturbingly amoral; the villains may be ludicrous stereotypes who mostly serve to have the kinky sex that the hero and heroine don’t engage in;…
Anne Davis, heiress to a Tidewater plantation, is having a disastrous day – first her lover abandons her despite her pregnancy, and then ruffians attack her on the docks of Philadelphia. Then, lo and behold, a handsome stranger rushes to her rescue. She reveals her secret to her sympathetic savior, Irish immigrant Michael O’Ryan, and…
As the title indicates, these stories all involve weddings. Not ordinary weddings, however, but marriages of convenience. In three cases, the bride and groom are complete strangers and must wed for reasons other than love. This book is a mixed saddlebag, if you will, of historical Western stories and styles, and as anthologies go, it’s…
Nineteenth century New York was a place with as much decadence and grandeur as Regency London. It also had a host of recognizable settings and lots of famous characters to play walk-on roles. Betina Krahn’s Sweet Talking Man makes good use of this richness, taking readers everywhere from an upscale brothel, to a settlement house…
In Here Comes the Bride, Pamela Morsi introduces us to Gussie Mudd – a woman who owns her own ice manufacturing company and knows exactly what she wants and how to get it. As the book begins she has decided to marry the town barber, Amos Dewey, and she hires the manager of her ice…
There were many things to like about this book, including the suffragette heroine who wants to be a lawyer and the interesting subplot involving the legal system circa 1874. Unfortunately, seriously unrealistic behavior between the main characters overshadowed the better aspects of the book, rendering it a so-so read in the end. Winifred Appleton has…
Even though lack of period feeling in medieval and regency romances sometimes annoys me, I can understand it. Those times and places are far from our present thoughts. The history is not taught in American high schools. The thought processes are foreign, and historical errors are easily overlooked by the reader unless she is a…
I hope I won’t need my fire extinguisher, but here goes – I found the romance in Titanic to be contrived and artificial. So when I began this book, a romance set aboard another real life doomed sea voyage, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Thank goodness Brenda Hiatt created the characters of Kent and…
The first two books in Evelyn Rogers’ Texas Empires triology followed the adventures of the Harden brothers as they made their way to Texas and glory. In Longhorn, Rogers introduces us to Maddie, the youngest of the Harden siblings and the last remaining family member in New Orleans. Maddie is waiting out the final days…
Move over, Cassie Edwards. You’ve got competition. I know that Kathleen Woodiwiss is famous for a distinctive way of writing, so I’d better come clean now. It’s a style that I find nearly unreadable. This is my first Woodiwiss book. The unparalleled purple prose had me squirming like nothing else I’ve read. But, even Woodiwiss…