She’s The One presents an interesting storyline – a successful, single, black thirty-something librarian suddenly finds herself named guardian of an old friend’s biracial daughter. But the characters fail to draw sympathy, and the story falls on the flat side, despite a lively (if uneven) plot. Deanna Lindsay is comfortable in her upscale Manhattan life,…
If you’ve seen or read any national news in the last year, you’ve probably heard of at least one incident where an African-American was injured or killed by white police officers, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sadly, it happens all too frequently. Sandra Kitt centers her new book…
Nineteenth century New York was a place with as much decadence and grandeur as Regency London. It also had a host of recognizable settings and lots of famous characters to play walk-on roles. Betina Krahn’s Sweet Talking Man makes good use of this richness, taking readers everywhere from an upscale brothel, to a settlement house…
In too many historical romances, the authors take great pains to get the period details correct. However, they often forget to have their characters act in period as well. The clothing may be described accurately, actual events may be incorporated into the plot, but the people in the story are nothing more than our contemporaries…
Signet lists Eric Jerome Dickey’s book on its spine as fiction but I think that may be because the writer is an African American male and no one expects such a person to be writing romance novels. However, this novel meets every test for the romance genre ever concocted. Dickey writes about emotions, relationships, love,…
The hero of The Portrait is Jonas Whitaker, the leading artist of his day in New York City, 1855. Jonas is forced by his patron to take on as his student Imogen, “Genie,” Carter, his patron’s godchild. Genie’s out-of-state father, who wants to make her into an artist like her late sister, is behind this…
Despite promising sparks early in the book, The Brightest Flame fails to live up to its name, ending with more fizzle and smoke than fire. Lively but shallow characters with questionable ethics, writing that glows lavender, and an implausible plot filled with invented conflicts left me burned out long before the end. The year is…
Again was the first book I read by Kathleen Gilles Seidel. It was the winner of the RITA award for best Contemporary Single Title for 1995. I enjoyed it so much that I bought her entire backlist. Again combines a wonderfully humorous concept with a poignant love story. I laughed quite a bit at the…
Family Affairs is labeled as straight fiction, but that’s not quite accurate. The primary focus of the book is the love story between the hero and the heroine. So is it romance? Well, not exactly. The hero and heroine both sleep with other people, and though their relationship seems to be solid at the end,…