Whenever I pick up a book by Marguerite Kaye, I know I’m going to get a well-crafted, character driven story with a slightly different focus to that found in the average historical romance – and The Soldier’s Dark Secret is exactly that. Touching and very readable, the story focuses on two emotionally damaged people struggling…
Rose Lerner has been an autobuy author for me ever since I read her début novel, In for a Penny. While she sets her stories in the Regency era, she tends to move away from the glittering ballrooms of the ton and puts a different spin on them, whether it be, as in Penny, looking…
The Viscount’s Christmas Temptation Is an entertaining novella/short story which is the prequel to Ms Ridley’s forthcoming Dukes of War series. Lady Amelia Pembroke , sister of the Duke of Ravenwood, has run her family’s grand household since her teens and is now, at the grand old age of twenty-nine, quite happy organising her younger…
If the set-up of this Christmas novella seems familiar, it’s because Anna Campbell originally wrote the opening pages of this story back in 2012 in response to a prompt by a blogger, which was – “A Wardrobe Malfunction on Christmas Eve”. She says she “immediately fell in love with the characters and their dilemma” and…
The first book in Joanna Chambers’ Enlightenment series, Provoked is set in Regency Scotland, at a time of much political and social unrest. The author immediately evokes a strong sense of time and place with the opening of the story in which two young men – weavers wrongly convicted of treason – are publicly executed. Present…
One of the best things about listening to new audio versions of older books is becoming reacquainted with stories I read many more years ago than I care to count! Georgette Heyer’s The Corinthian is not a title I’ve re-read over the years, so coming back to it in audio was almost like experiencing a…
Historicals are very much my poison of choice when it comes to romance reading, so rather than genre-hopping when I select review books, I tend to scout around for books by unknown or less familiar authors. Perhaps it’s overly optimistic of me, because I think that it happens more often than not that such a…
Margaret McPhee packs a surprising emotional punch into the pages of The Gentleman Rogue, the story of a young, well-born woman whose fortunes have taken a downward turn and a self-made man who, despite his wealth is still relegated to the outskirts of the society to which the heroine once belonged. Emma Northcote was brought…
I picked up this category-length novel because I was intrigued by the idea of the heroine’s character having a “penchant for numbers”. I’ve come across quite a few books lately where the hero is some sort of mathematical or scientific whizz-kid, but it’s less common to find a heroine where that is the case. Unfortunately,…
Originally published in 1990, Mrs McVinnie’s London Season tells the story of a young, Scottish war widow who, rather like a Regency Mary Poppins, joins the household of a troubled family and, with her very individual blend of kindness, practicality and backbone, improves the lot of each of its members. Widowed little more than a…