The last few months I’ve bought several Silhouette Bombshells, none of which held my attention past the initial chapters, all of which went unfinished. Natalie Dunbar’s A Model Spy immediately stands as an improvement since I was able to finish it rather easily, but while it tells an interesting story, it’s also a disappointingly uneven…
What to Keep is a slow, quiet character piece about a woman reconnecting with her family history after inheriting her ancestral home. At forty Juliette Carlton is hardly living the life she always dreamed of. A three-time divorcee, she works as a blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas casino. She’s broke thanks to her most…
Rare Breed is a book I really wanted to like. It’s an adventure tale set in Africa with a heroine who’s a park ranger fighting to save the animals from poachers. Needless to say, this isn’t exactly the kind of story you come across everyday. But the more I think about it, the more I…
Devil’s Bargain is the first in Rachel Caine’s new Red Letter Days series. The premise sounded unusual, and for the most part, the book lived up to it. It’s a decent start that raises intriguing possibilities for future books, even if the execution is uneven. Jazz Callender is a former Kansas City cop looking to…
Rexanne Becnel becomes the latest historical romance author to try her hand at contemporary women’s fiction with Old Boyfriends. Part of the new Harlequin Next series fiction line for “older women” (older than 35 that is), it’s a decent read, if a little too uneven for me to recommend wholeheartedly. M.J., Bitsey, and Cat are…
The heroines featured in the Bombshell line have been surprisingly diverse, including more than just secret agents and globetrotting adventuresses. From scientists to accountants to a hand-writing analyst last month, there’s no one specific type of Bombshell heroine. Carol Stephenson’s Courting Danger introduces another type, criminal defense attorney Katherine Rochelle, in the first in a…
The Bombshell line has opened up the series world to a wealth of new story material and subject matter that’s far different than the typical Silhouette release. Kathryn Jensen’s Hot Pursuit is a prime example. The heroine is a NASA scientist dealing with a hijacked satellite. The fresh and unusual storyline that keeps it fairly…
Stephanie Doyle’s The Contestant is set against the backdrop of a reality TV show. Fittingly, the book itself is much like most reality shows: easily digested, sporadically entertaining, but also rather empty and unsatisfying. It gets off to a promising start. In the prologue, the author introduces us to Talia Mooney, an Olympic diver competing…
Silhouette’s Bombshell line didn’t get off to the best start, but it seems to have found its legs the last several months. Most of my favorites have been the action/adventure stories set in exotic locales. An Angel in Stone is that type of story, a cool read about competing fossil hunters racing through the jungles…
Harlequin Next is a new series line featuring Women’s Fiction. If Sandwiched is any indication, Harlequin may have something good on their hands. This was a very pleasant book indeed. Cecilia (CiCi) Dupree is 42 and a counselor by profession. She has a seventeen-year-old daughter, Erin, who is a talented musician, and a good girl….