I’m always eager to read romances in unusual settings, so Catherine Mann’s latest military romance, Defender, set entirely in Turkey, appealed to me. While I found most of the characters interesting, there are too many separate threads to give it a hearty recommendation. Captain Jimmy Gage is a pilot for a dark ops squadron in…
I have loved Robin Hood books from a variety of authors ranging from Parke Godwin to Marsha Canham, and I am so happy to see a book that sits well alongside them. While the publisher, for reasons unknown, elected to punish this month’s debut author with a stupid title and a hideous cover (you can…
I found as I considered Sweet Talk for this review that the author could have done a lot of things wrong in this story since it features a relatively safe plot. However, she managed to create a sweet story with real characters and real situations. Claire Keyes was a child prodigy. After an astonishing first…
Janice Kay Johnson is one of my few auto-buy category romance writers. Snowbound not only reinforces her status, it moves the book to the top of my list for the author. The book begins with a vivid, terrifying drive through the Cascade Mountains. Fiona MacPherson, a teacher at a private high school in Portland, is…
As a long time romance reader, sometimes I find myself forgetting why I love this genre so much. At times titles, plots, and characters all blend together until all I can say is “love prevails in the end”. But at other times I read a book that refreshingly, uniquely, and unequivocally reminds me just why…
The Parfit Knight by Stella Riley (writing as Juliet Blyth) is an old favorite. Rereading it for this review, I was delighted to find it as charming as I did twenty years ago when it was published. In the prologue, the author describes an accident: a girl plays catch with her brother in a country…
I wanted to do something special for my 50th review for AAR. After reading Susan Carroll’s magnificent Winterbourne (originally published in 1987), I knew this was that something. The Medieval Romance is one of my favorite sub-genres, and they are few and far between. Good ones are hard to find…great ones even more rare. Susan…
Sometimes I’m just in the mood for a good tearjerker – a romance that is touching and emotional and shows how powerfully love can change someone’s life. Redemption is that kind of book. The plot has its rough spots, but the romance is ultimately very sweet and well worth the time spent reading. Since the…
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…
I admit it. I like World War II stories, and there aren’t many romance novels set in that era. I guess the 1930s and 1940s aren’t far enough in the past to be truly “historical,” but they aren’t recent enough to be “contemporary.” And all too often they have tragic endings. The Conway sisters Polly,…