Brimming with family, food and fun, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop is a sweet story that celebrates Paris, paintings, pastries and the joy of discovering your own unique path through life. Vanessa Yu sees dead people. Well, not really but she can foresee death, adultery, proposals, arguments, new jobs, job loss and a host…
In her biography, Julia Bennet says she writes historical romance with passion, intrigue, dark humor and the occasional animal sidekick. She does! The Ruin of Evangeline Jones has passion and intrigue in spades. Not so much the humor, but we do get a memorable cat. I like all of these things, and I hoped to…
The Burning Island is Hester Young’s third novel featuring Charlotte (Charlie) Cates, a journalist with an extremely rare psychic ability that allows her to see missing or deceased children in her dreams. This is a book that could be read as a standalone, but readers will have a much clearer understanding of Charlie’s life circumstances…
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t read the first book in the Sins of the Cities trilogy, An Unseen Attraction, this review may contain spoilers. I thought the first book in the Sins of the Cities trilogy was terrific, but this one is even better. Each book in the trilogy features a different couple, but they’re…
Joanna Chambers’ A Gathering Storm is the sole historical entry in the Porthkennack series of queer romances written by five different award-winning, best-selling British LGBTQ+ romance authors. All the books – the others are by Charlie Cochrane, J.L. Merrow, Alex Beecroft and Garrett Leigh – can be read in any order and are standalone titles;…
This was my first book by Simone St. James, but will definitely not be my last. The Other Side of Midnight was a refreshing tale of intrigue and suspense set in the unusual era of post WWI England. I love romantic suspense as well as historical fiction, and while I have read a few authors…
The general problem with The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie is that nothing goes quite far enough. There are no wicked deeds. The worlds of the hero and heroine – engineering and spiritualism, respectively – aren’t detailed or thoughtful enough. The characterizations are full of unrealized potential. Although there’s a decent read here, overall the…
I have read a few of Amanda Quick’s Arcane Series books and while entertaining, those paranormal historicals were just above average for me. I have always preferred her straight historical romances. This second book in her Ladies of Lantern Street was a much better paranormal and just barely missed DIK status. <!– var browName =…
The paranormal romances I like best are those that make magicians and supernatural beings not larger-than-life and above the rest of society, but instead show the struggle of creating a society that consists of both magical and mundane beings. Lessons After Dark is such a story set in an alternative Victorian England, and it is,…
Kiss & Hell is my first book by Dakota Cassidy, and if it’s representative of her work, will likely be my last. The plot moves unbearably slow, and the heroine is like Paris Hilton channeling Snoop Doggy Dogg. Delaney Markham is a medium who, like, helps confused souls cross over. She also holds séances to…