In Deadly Kisses Brenda Joyce continues the saga of the investigating career of socialite Francesca Cahill. Francesca is engaged to Calder Hart at the beginning of the book, but they are both immediately plunged into a murder involving his former mistress which threatens their lives and love. Calder had agreed to let his ex-mistress, Daisy…
Brenda Joyce’s latest novel is a strangely compelling blend of mystery and melodrama. This is the kind of book where analyzing its pros and cons wouldn’t really describe the overall effect of reading it. For all its flaws – and there are plenty of them – it remains a compulsively readable story. <!– var browName…
New-to-me authors and series are always fun to try, so I looked forward to Deadly Caress, which had the added attraction of being set in New York in 1902, a different and interesting setting. Brenda Joyce creates a world that’s easy to get sucked into, but my enthusiasm waned considerably because of problems with the…
I had never read Brenda Joyce before and I was enthused about reviewing Deadly Desire. The Francesca Cahill series has gotten fairly good reviews here, Joyce has her fans and some of her other books have been very well received. So it came as a complete shock to me how much I loathed this book….
Brenda Joyce’s latest Francesca Cahill installment purports to be a historical mystery, but “historical soap opera” may be just as apt a description. There were so many characters to keep track of in this turn of the century whodunit, all involved in their own little (and not so little) subplots, that I often felt like…
It’s a good thing Brenda Joyce keeps telling us just how smart heroine Francesca Cahill is, because otherwise the reader might have good cause to wonder. <!– var browName = navigator.appName; var SiteID = 1; var ZoneID = 4; var browDateTime = (new Date()).getTime(); if (browName=='Netscape') { document.write('‘); document.write(”); } if (browName!=’Netscape’) { document.write(‘‘); document.write(”);…
B.D. Joyce is the pseudonym adopted by Brenda Joyce for her new series of historical mysteries set in turn of the century New York City. Such a pseudonym might invite comparisons to Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb and the similarities go beyond the name. Deadly Love sets up Francesca Cahill, a wealthy reformer, and Rick Bragg, New…