Stranded With Her Rescuer is what some might call a problem book. On the one hand, it’s well written and the characters click together very well. However, their love story relies on a plot device that I suspect might turn off more than a few readers. If you can handle how Will and Kitty come…
This is the third book in Ms. Brownley’s Undercover Ladies series and like the other two it turns the Wild West into a fun, funny and romantic place to be. Of course, there’s plenty of danger and hard work as well as serious subjects such as homicide. However, the writing and main events of the…
Texas Destiny received an A at AAR a while back and was selected for the NPR Top 100 Romances list, which I’m reading my way through. I had high hopes for it, but ultimately, it let me down. The hero wallowed in bitter self-loathing, and the heroine’s mix of genteel martyrdom and ability to save…
The vast majority of historical romances that I read are set in Regency England…because the vast majority of historical romances that are written are set in Regency England. However, my two favorite time/place settings are Medieval Europe and American Westerns. It is just very hard to find any recent books in these sub-genres that are…
Even if I do not always come away from a Carla Kelly book thinking it is one of the best books I have ever read, I always come away satisfied with a good story. I also have to watch myself in grading because I have read so many books by Ms. Kelly that I expect…
When I first got my hands on Marco and the Devil’s Bargain, I was a little let down. I hadn’t realized it was the second in a series, and more importantly, that it followed the same couple that had already fallen in love and gotten married in the first book. In the past, I’ve read…
What do you do when your life blows up? If you are the type of heroine I prefer, you dust yourself off and move on. That is exactly what happens with the main character of this novel after she is betrayed, rejected, and finds herself clutching at the smallest of opportunities in the hope of…
An Outlaw in Wonderland sounded like it was right up my alley. A Union doctor who spies in a Confederate hospital? A Virginia heroine with mixed loyalties? Sign me up! Or not. All the exciting stuff on the back cover takes place at the beginning of the book, which rapidly devolves into kitchen sink plotting…
When I read the synopsis of this story, I thought it looked simple and sweet, and although I don’t read a lot of Westerns in general, I wanted to read this one. While the romance between our two main characters could definitely be classified as sweet, I would never call this book simple. It is…
I once said that I’d happily read anything Carla Kelly wrote. Unfortunately, this book convinced me what works for her at around 200 pages doesn’t seem as compelling and interesting when the page count more than doubles. No one who’s a fan of Kelly’s expects her stories to be seat of the pants exciting, but…