Following the recipe is the key to a successful bake. Rosaline Palmer has always lived by those rules—well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, with a paycheck as useful as greaseproof paper and a house crumbling faster than biscuits in tea, she’s teetering on the edge of…
Jay Hogan takes the number of books in the Vino and Veritas series into double figures with Unguarded – the story of a closeted, repressed bisexual veterinary surgeon and an ex-pat Kiwi running from an abusive relationship – and it’s the best book of the series (that I’ve read) so far. If you haven’t picked…
Winterkeep is the fourth book in the Graceling Realm series, and I’d strongly suggest that if you like the sound of it, you start with the first book, Graceling. Like many fantasy series, the books build on each other, and there’s no way to write this review without spoilers. Fortunately, the three previous novels (Graceling,…
Skye is, at size 16, an average American girl – but much larger than the average Korean (something her mother will never let her forget) and downright gargantuan in the world of K-pop. Skye, however, won’t let other people’s beauty standards hold her back. Knowing she can dance and sing, she enters a K-pop talent…
Rachel Kramer Bussel’s annual collection of romanterotica has once again graced our Kindles, e-readers and bookshelves, and this collection is just as delightful as the last. I liked it rather better than the previous volume, as this one feels more consistent. As always, the submissions involved vary, from a woman’s encounter with the town bad…
In Off Balance, the first book in her new series of contemporary romances, author Jay Hogan takes a big geographical leap from one end of New Zealand to the other, from the lakes and mountains of the Southland (the setting for her recent Southern Lights books) to the coastal region of subtropical Northland at the…
The Secret of You and Me is an unexpected treat of a heartfelt but very dark novel, a warm and queer retelling of Persuasion by Jane Austen. But it fashions a whole new world, a whole new set of feelings created from broken hearts and heavy religious guilt in small-town Texas. Captain Nora Noakes has…
Talia Hibbert is a master craftsperson when it comes to romance novels, and she continues to demonstrate her ability to woo a reader’s heart with her latest release, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, book two in her Brown Sisters series. Part-time teacher and PhD student Danika – Dani – Brown has a great life. She…
I’m not a royal-watcher, and as a rule, I’m not a fan of royal romances. Of those I’ve read (and that isn’t a large number) the only one that really worked for me was Lilah Pace’s His Royal Secret/His Royal Favorite duology, and a big part of that was because the author had taken care to…
Getting Dirty falls into the trap a lot of the books in Harlequin’s Dare line fall into, in that it wants to be daring and naughty but falls afoul of typical romance conventions. And the conventions it shows us aren’t that great, either. Private dick Ash has been assigned to uncover the secrets of high…