Even though I review a lot of small town romances, I can say that the pull is not the small town, but the time spent building relationships and the sense of community. That is something that Ms. Stewart does very well. So even though I have forgotten more characters in St. Dennis, Maryland than I…
Fans of Karen Rose will recognize the hero and heroine of this novel from her book No One Left to Tell. Daphne and Joseph met during the case surrounding Paige but neither has made a move to act on their mutual attraction. All that changes when Daphne finds herself in the middle of prosecuting a…
Reading this book was a lot like spending an afternoon with my very sweet, very voluble cousin who, every time I see her, launches into protracted, tedious stories about people I’ve never met and, based on her anecdotes, have no interest in meeting. While she chatters on, I think – and I do always feel…
The author’s older contemporary romances have a special place in my library. I followed the author into romantic suspense, but they were hit or miss for me. While I picked this one for review believing it would be romantic suspense, I was delighted to discover that Mariah Stewart is again writing the kind of contemporary…
I recently started two books around the same time, one by a favorite author and the other by Sandra Kitt. Though I’d never before read a book by Ms. Kitt, I almost immediately dumped the book by the favorite author in favor of Southern Comfort. There is something very human and natural in the problems…
Rebecca York is an author who’s specialized in writing some unusual stories over the years. Nowhere Man is one of the very best of her roughly five dozen releases. Part military action thriller, part mystery, part poignant romance, it also creates a compelling and unique hero unlike any other in the title character. Targeted for…
Blood and Chocolate was one of the first werewolf books I read, and it’s still one of my favorites, second only to Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten. I stumbled across it on a list of recommended young adult books. It was a 1998 American Library Association Best Book and Quick Pick for teens, which basically means that…
Like Chance Mackenzie from Linda Howard’s Mackenzie series, Seth Quinn proved to be such a popular character from Nora Roberts’ Chesapeake Bay series that fans asked for and now have the chance to read his love story. Sea Swept happens to be one of my all-time keepers, and although Chesapeake Blue doesn’t earn keeper status…
Marrying Owen is the first book in the Bachelors Inc. trilogy. It had me charmed and delighted all through it until the last chapter when a plot twist came out of nowhere, based not on character but solely to create conflict and advance the story. But after I closed it, the charming parts were the…
Legacy is a contemporary romance with some suspense thrown in. The “legacy” is an unusual will that forces the hero and heroine of the novel to live and work together for a year. The characters and plot are pleasant enough, but also a little banal. Although the plot picks up a little toward the end…