Beauty Like the Night, the eagerly awaited sixth book in Joanna Bourne’s widely acclaimed Spymaster series, tells the story of Séverine de Cabrillac, whom we first met as a very young child caught up in the revolutionary terror of late eighteenth century Paris in The Forbidden Rose. Ten years after being brought to England by…
Lisa Kleypas was one of the first romance authors I read and is one of the few from my early days I still read voraciously. A solid half of her books are on my DIK list, so when I got the chance to review her new historical, I was thrilled. While this book isn’t quite…
An AAR Top 100 Romance review originally published on August 16, 2006 It’s been some time now since I had a good cry over a book, but toward the end of Simply Love I had to get out several handkerchiefs. When Mary Balogh is on top of her game, she is hard to beat and…
I enjoyed every bit of this book and I need/want to convince you to read it too! Delightful, charming, funny, addictive and entertaining, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is chock full of both vice and virtue. The Grand Tour of Europe planned by our protagonist quickly goes awry and evolves instead into a…
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Stella Riley’s work, so anyone reading this review could be forgiven for thinking that the DIK rating was a foregone conclusion. And perhaps it was – I’ve always found her writing, characterisation and storytelling to be of consistently high quality, and The Black Madonna is no…
An AAR Top 100 Romance originally published on August 1, 2001 To be perfectly honest, Almost Heaven, my ultimate favorite romance in the whole world, wasn’t exactly that when I first read it. No indeed, it wasn’t love-at-first-read in the beginning, but, rather, hate. Let me say that I wasn’t used to romance novels at…
The Wicked Cousin starts off on a high note with a superb prologue that’s both gripping and moving, and introduces us to the book’s eponymous hero, Sebastian Audley. The story loses steam somewhat after the principals fall in love, but fortunately, Ms. Riley’s terrific writing elevates this rather basic love story from ordinary to extraordinary. …
Joanna Chambers’ A Gathering Storm is the sole historical entry in the Porthkennack series of queer romances written by five different award-winning, best-selling British LGBTQ+ romance authors. All the books – the others are by Charlie Cochrane, J.L. Merrow, Alex Beecroft and Garrett Leigh – can be read in any order and are standalone titles;…
A kindly old duke married Charlotte Blakemore, but his death has left his son refusing to execute a will leaving Charlotte a significant independence. Charlotte runs away and finds herself in the company of Edward Cary, heir to the Earl of Beckley, who himself ran away two decades ago in the hopes of sparing his…
Sally Kent’s brother Richard lets the family tradition down when instead of joining the Navy, he escapes to the clergy. So it’s Sally, who’s got the family saltwater blood, who dons midshipman’s blues and sets sail on the Audacious just before Trafalgar. She finds herself under the supervision of Lieutenant David Colyear, an outstanding officer…