Although this is book two in Jenni Fletcher’s Regency Belles of Bath series, I didn’t feel I’d missed anything by not having read book one (An Unconventional Countess), as the author incorporates everything I needed to know about the events of that story into this one. Unexpectedly Wed to the Officer is a charming character-driven…
This is a curious anthology because while two of the stories are Kelly’s usual fare, one is happy-ending fiction rather than a romance, and the other is a reprint of the novella which introduced Able Six, an eidetic genius very unlike Kelly’s general ordinary-folk protagonists. Boxing the Compass: A (NB: fiction) Captain Paul Fergusson is…
It would be hard to choose the worst problem facing Lieutenant Charles Dance in his new peacetime posting, a scientific expedition on board the HMS Tenacious. Is it the ship’s state of disrepair and leaks? The drunken captain? The vicious bosun? The purser who ran off with the entire budget? Or is it J.E. Burke,…
In order to give Harlequin Manga a fair shake, I looked for a book where I had read and enjoyed the original. When Carla Kelly announced that her book The Admiral’s Penniless Bride had been selected for adaptation, I knew I’d found my test case. And the verdict? It’s delightful! The story is perhaps one…
Sailing Master Able Six’s odd name reflects his dismal origins: the sixth child abandoned that month at a workhouse orphanage, and too durable to die. His uncanny brain (he remembers absolutely everything he’s ever seen) allows him to become a Royal Navy sailing master, a position never previously attained by a bastard. Now ashore as…
There’s no genre more time-tested and beloved in the romance genre than the Regency. It’s drummed up a lot of interesting writers lately, and Susanna Malcolm joins their ranks with Besotted by the Viscount, an exploration of the poor heroine/rich scarred minor aristocracy trope that’s always been a staple of the genre. When Captain Lord…
It Takes Two to Tumble is the first book in a new series from Cat Sebastian entitled Seducing the Sedgwicks, which features a group of siblings who had a most unconventional, bohemian upbringing in a household comprising their father, his wife, his mistress and various itinerant hangers-on. This first instalment features the eldest son, Benedict,…
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…
Carla Kelly is an auto-buy author for me. She reminds me a little bit of a modern day Jane Austen but with a tad more bite; sweet but with a dose of pepper. I am not sure there is even a mediocre book among her backlist much less a poor one. Her latest novel is…
I felt emotionally exhausted by the time I’d finished reading this book. There’s no way to do it justice in couple of paragraphs, but there’s no question that in Sheridan Drake, Ms Kinsale has created one of the most complex, compelling heroes – should that be anti-heroes? – I’ve ever read. A decorated naval officer,…