I am very fond of traditional Regencies, and I think it’s great that Harlequin has taken to reissuing two older Mills & Boon books each month, even if they are only available through the Harlequin website. That said, I was less than delighted with The Devil and Drusilla by Paula Marshall. It is a traditional…
I have a confession to make: I used to think Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart a prime example of a Guilty Pleasure. Very well written, but verging on melodrama, and thus only to be enjoyed with a touch of embarrassment. Rereading it for the purpose of this review, I realized I couldn’t have been…
Castle of the Wolf certainly delivers a refreshingly different setting, but the characters and the story have a regrettably familiar feel. Still, for readers craving a story not set in Regency England, this book might well hit the spot. The plot involves Cissy Fussell, a young woman destined to be a poor relation living on…
Whispers of the Night started out with a bang – great writing with a fabulous setting and complex characters – only to become a bit of a frustrating read when a clichéd plotline was introduced. Alcyone Carter is the stunningly beautiful daughter of a wealthy industrialist who wishes his daughter to marry a peer. After…
Myths and fairy tales have a soft spot in the heart of many a reader. I remember very clearly whiling away my childhood hours with Edith Hamilton’s Mythology or selected volumes of The New Junior Classics. There’s something very satisfying about a story with a point, a story told to illustrate and perpetuate virtuous behavior….
Sometimes the slide into darkness is so gradual that we do not realize what we have gotten into until we are in too deep to extricate ourselves. That is what happens in Laura Caldwell’s latest book in which she explores various tests to the bonds of marriage and friendship. What seems like a damaged relationship…
The good news is that Donna Lea Simpson’s Awaiting the Moon takes place in 1795 (Translation: Not the Regency) in a remote area of Germany (Translation: Not England). Even better, the author does a terrific job of making the reader feel as if she, too, is isolated in a mysterious castle in a foreign country…
“The apartment house stood at the edge of a woods outside a city in southern New Hampshire. Beyond the woods flowed the river, dark and twisting.” And so begins Bethany Campbell’s Dead Opposites, a romantic suspense novel set in a creepy old apartment building no one would want to call home sweet home. Both a…
Eve Silver’s debut tale of a damsel in distress and the mysterious doctor who rescues her draws the reader in with a deliciously dark, Gothic atmosphere that sets it apart from the light and fluffy historicals of recent years. Silver does an excellent job of evoking a dark and spooky mood and, while the organization…
Though His Dark Desires takes place in the midst of a sultry New Orleans summer, it represents something quite the opposite for romance readers: a welcome breath of fresh air. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a bonafide Regency girl from w-a-a-a-y back. But somewhere along the way, a steady diet of All-Regency-All-The-Time, interspersed with…