Kaki Warner proved how adept she was at telling sweeping tales of the Western United States with her Blood Rose trilogy in 2010. Now the first of her avidly awaited new series is finally here and Warner not only doesn’t disappoint, but proves that she’s the new go-to writer for Western romances. Southern belle and…
Enslave: The Taming of the Beast is surprisingly sound for an erotic romance. There is an actual plot, and to some degree there is also character development! Hurrah! I wholeheartedly applaud the author’s perspicacity, but the above-average-erotica quality of its plot and characterization was ultimately tempered by, well, everything else. The technical style is average,…
The Bounty Hunter’s Bride tells a wonderful story of love and redemption that succeeds at sending a strong message without talking down to readers. The author’s characters all find themselves with few options in their lives, but it is in working together and loving each other that they find hope. Faced with ostracism at home,…
Planet X by Evangeline Anderson starts out with great promise. The author gets everything right – plotting, pacing, and two absolutely terrific protagonists who simply leap off the pages. Unfortunately, things took a downhill turn and my predominant feeling when I finished the book was great disappointment. Beautiful 21-year-old Krisa Elyison from Capellia, also dubbed…
Just when I thought I’d read almost every variant of Western romance, along comes Lynna Banning’s latest. Forget cowboys and ranchers, this is the tale of a town fundraiser and a mail-order bride competition. While the initial set-up of the story is rather contrived, the story does have some rather unexpectedly touching moments. Leora (Lolly)…
Mail-order brides have always been a popular theme in historical romance. While some of these books concentrate only on the marriage itself, with the hero and heroine’s motivations for considering such a relationship unimportant to the story, Mary Burton’s latest novel is made more powerful by the fact that her main characters’ reasons for entering…
I always love to see historical romances set in times and places I don’t encounter as often those set in, for example, Regency England or the American West. Therefore, I was excited about reading a novel set among the Mounties in late 19th century Alberta. Sarah O’Neill travels all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia…
I hardly know what to say. In reading Dance On The Wind I was bewildered throughout by the amateurish nature of the writing, the one-dimensional characters, and the literally hundreds of clichés that passed for dialogue. It was almost as though somebody had taken all the overused phrases from every romance ever written, put them…
I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for heroines who are tough and resilient, but also convinced that they’re unattractive. You know the ones; they’re called too gawky, tall, heavy, short, etc. by everyone in their families, so they’re certain those opinions are right. Perhaps it’s the small confidence issues most women, me included, feel, that…
If High Country Bride were a mainstream novel, some of its story elements would be laughed off the page. We have an only-in-a-romance will, wild west prostitutes who stay beautiful and never come down with STD’s, and a heroine who is supposed to have gone to good schools, but comes off as a clueless simp….