The Player is the third book in Ms. Riley’s Rockcliffe series, but it is not necessary to read the previous books to enjoy or understand this book. While the book is set in 1776, it has a regency feel in terms of subtle sexuality that readers who dislike too much erotic displays will enjoy. Francis…
This is the first in a new series from Ms Hunter featuring three ducal sons, two of whom are legitimate and a third who is not – and this is his book. It’s an entertaining story; the central characters are likeable and intelligent, and there is an intriguing secondary plot surrounding the possible art theft…
Wicked My Love is the second book in Ms Ives’ Wicked Little Secrets series – although there are no characters from the previous book involved, so it works perfectly well as a stand-alone. The author sets her romance against the backdrop of the world of banking and finance in the mid-19th century, and has provided…
I was intrigued by the blurb for this, the second in the author’s Breconridge Brothers series, because the heroine, Lady Serena Carew, is described as being “a noble-born heiress raised in India”, which is a little out of the ordinary for the genre. I will admit to having been slightly underwhelmed by Ms Bradford’s previous…
If the Viscount Falls is a decent book about decent people who have some basic communication issues. There’s a little bit of a mystery in it, which is nice, but overall it felt like the bland sort of book you’d be happy to pick up when you’re bored. I didn’t dislike it, but I wasn’t…
I haven’t (yet) got around to reading Alyssa Alexander’s début novel, The Smuggler Wore Silk, but having heard good things about it from friends whose opinions I trust, I was keen to read her latest book, In Bed With a Spy. I was very impressed with the author’s ability to create a fast-paced story and…
Twice Tempted is the fifth instalment in Eileen Dreyer’s Drake’s Rakes series, and follows neatly on from book four, Once a Rake. During the course of that book, twin sisters Fiona and Mairead Ferguson learned that their brother, Ian, had been killed following his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington. Disgust and fear…
I’ve seen a lot of very mixed reactions to this book, which is the final novel in the author’s Smythe-Smith Quartet. All the negative comments I’ve seen concern the actions of the hero, the eponymous Sir Richard, who – it’s true – perpetrates a rather despicable deception on the heroine. But when I reached the…
I found The Midnight Rake rather hard going at first. Not because it’s difficult to read, but because I spent so much time shaking my head at the author’s tortuous sentence structure and instances of incorrect word usage that my progress was quite slow! Once I’d given up expecting the book to be written in…
I love the Christmas season and all the traditions that come with it. Well, most of the traditions are good ones. I’m not particularly enamored of the plethora of cutesy Hallmark Christmas movies that run on TV almost 24/7 during the month of December. They are just too far removed from reality for my taste….