Chelsea M. Cameron’s The Girl Next Door treats the reader to a small-town romance between lifelong acquaintances. It’s a simple, sweet, low-conflict romance that’s perfectly adorable. Following a series of financial failures that resulted in her losing her business in Boston, Iris Turner returns to Salty Cove, Maine, and accompanied by her Weimeraner, Dolly Parton,…
Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen takes a break from her popular Rizzoli and Isles mystery series with The Shape of Night, a standalone thriller about a girl, a house and a very alluring ghost. Nearly incapacitated by guilt, stagnated cookbook author Ava Collette takes a summer rental in a remote, seaside village in Maine, hoping the…
They say never judge a book by its cover, but the cover is why I picked out The Cottage on Pumpkin and Vine. I love all things autumnal, and I can’t recall seeing another romance that focuses around Halloween. This collection of three novellas centers around Rose Cottage Bed and Breakfast and its somewhat mystical…
Though I had actually read, and greatly enjoyed, Kristan Higgins before, it was my sister who handed me Catch of the Day. “I think you’ll really like this,” she said. “It’s kind of a romance between a woman and her dog.” While I’m not sure I’d entirely agree with that assessment, I loved the book…
Never heard of Janet Chapman? That’s about to change, right now. If her debut novel, Charming the Highlander, is any indication, her name is going to soar quickly to the top of the discerning reader’s list of must-buy authors. Charming the Highlander is set in contemporary northwestern Maine, and tells the story of Greylen MacKeage…
The cover of The Last Viking is not for those who are squeamish about reading romance novels in public. It has the hero and heroine, Rolf and Meredith in a nekkid embrace while the surf washes over them and hides all the naughty bits. Since the story takes place in Maine, I can’t help but…
Jill Barnett almost deserves an A for effort in Carried Away. Unfortunately, the execution of this unique melding of two complete love stories and varying points of view doesn’t quite merit a five. Too bad, because this author is one of the best in the genre, writing books that are all at once funny, sexy,…