Sometimes a book is totally working for you, and then something tanks it. Need Me could have gotten a much higher grade from me, except the middle of the book went so far off the tracks that it was irredeemable. The result was half a book I loved, and half one that I couldn’t stand….
Get out your tissues for this incredibly moving and superbly poignant gay romance that explores the lost and found qualities of memory loss on two men in New York City. <!– var browName = navigator.appName; var SiteID = 1; var ZoneID = 4; var browDateTime = (new Date()).getTime(); if (browName=='Netscape') { document.write('‘); document.write(”); } if…
There’s a telling exchange between Edie Higgins and Tyler Hart — the heroine and hero of Ms. O’Reilly’s latest Harlequin Blaze novel Just Surrender — when the two first meet. Edie, moonlighting for a night as a New York cabbie, picks up Tyler from JFK and takes him the very long way into the city….
When I open a book and smile at the first sentence, it’s a sign of good things to come. When I close the book – still smiling – I know I’ve found a keeper. Power Play is funny, sweet and utterly delightful. Years ago, Monica Geary came to New York determined to be an actress….
I picked up Deirdre Martin’s first hockey-related book simply because it was hockey-related. There’s not a whole lot of recourse for Canadian ex-pats in the land of eternal sunshine (Australia). So combining two of my great loves – hockey and romance novels – together in one cutely-covered package seemed the perfect solution. However, even my…
What an odd, unsettling little book How I Live Now is. Should I be surprised that this received the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult fiction? It seems all of the YA award winners these days are for stories that push the envelope. And this one does. It really does. Daisy has…
The year is 1882. Michael “Mick” McCann is a New York City policeman, not long off the boat from Ireland. He sees a street gang tormenting a boy and rescues him, only to discover that his waif is a woman in boy’s clothing. Her name is Timona Calverson, and she says she was kidnapped and…
This is a difficult book to grade because while After the Fire definitely showcases everything consistently good about Kathryn Shay’s work, it also highlights the things that repeatedly make her a frustrating read for me. An excellent writer with strong command of plot, character development, and a skill for portraying real, multidimensional relationships, Shay often…
What to say, what to say? I’ve been waiting to read Tatiana and Alexander since September 23, 2001 at 4:35 PM, give or take a few minutes. That’s when I finished Simon’s wonderful, heartbreaking epic story The Bronze Horseman. If you’ve read that book, you’ll know why I immediately needed to get my hands on…
One can argue that this is but one of a million love stories ever written. A tall, brave soldier and a diminutive blonde nurse; the heartbreak and terror of World War II; sex, partings and reunions, deaths. And yet to say that Tatiana and Alexander is a love story is like saying that Niagara is…