The film Crazy Heart for which Jeff Bridges won an Academy Award as Best Actor gave audiences a look at one end of a country musician’s journey. In this engrossing book Judd gives insight into the other end of the road – the first few steps in becoming a country star. When a Kentucky radio…
Alissa Johnson’s Destined to Last was just what I needed this week amidst my finals and papers: A solid historical romance with interesting characters and a well-developed relationship. Lady Kate Cole isn’t known for her grace; She has a tendency to knock things over and trip, but it’s not because she’s clumsy. She’s actually a…
After last year’s exceptional Wicked Burn, I was really looking forward to Kery’s latest contemporary erotic romance. While I felt Paradise Rules wasn’t quite as good as Wicked Burn, it’s a fine example of what I’m always hoping for (but don’t often find) when I pick up an erotic romance: a racier, but still emotionally…
When was the last time you read a romance set in the earliest days of the Jazz Age? Whistling in the Dark not only features an unusual setting but two heroes who face ordinary struggles such as keeping a family business afloat. I also loved the insight into the earliest days of radio, before the…
I’m always eager to read romances in unusual settings, so Catherine Mann’s latest military romance, Defender, set entirely in Turkey, appealed to me. While I found most of the characters interesting, there are too many separate threads to give it a hearty recommendation. Captain Jimmy Gage is a pilot for a dark ops squadron in…
I found as I considered Sweet Talk for this review that the author could have done a lot of things wrong in this story since it features a relatively safe plot. However, she managed to create a sweet story with real characters and real situations. Claire Keyes was a child prodigy. After an astonishing first…
Lately it seems as though historical fiction is succeeding in doing two things for me that many historical romances no longer do: Delivering a strong sense of time and place set against real life events and sending the reader on glorious flights of fancy. Marrying Mozart is just such a tale. Though it is fiction…
It’s Not You It’s Me is a road romance and a reunion story between people who used to be best friends. If any of those scenarios press your buttons, you might want to pick this one up. Charlotte “Charlie” Notting has had a rough couple of years. One day, out of the blue she gets…
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…
A wonderful, lush, intelligently written novel that came this close to DIK status for me, His Every Kiss is an absolutely not-to-be-missed treat for those less than pleased with the vast majority of today’s European Historical Romances. There is life out there, people, and Laura Lee Guhrke’s latest is proof of it. Readers of Guilty…