Dr. Seuss said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” That statement perfectly describes how I feel towards DIK reads. They are such a pleasure to experience and so difficult to put down. Nothing quite beats that special feeling of finding a truly special book. When SAS soldier Lee Davis proposed to Juliet…
This début book from Victoria Morgan is easily one of the best historical romances I’ve ever read. In fact, I don’t think I’ve felt this excited about a new author in the genre since I read Cecilia Grant’s A Lady Awakened. The storyline is fairly simple, but this allows the author the time to fully…
I am always amazed when I re-discover a long published author. As the story unfolded , I kept thinking to myself, ”This is a good book, why did you stop reading her?” Don’t Cry for Me has some plot holes that typically would drive me crazy, but in the hands of Ms. Sala I didn’t…
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,…
I love unique settings and the fictional island of Mirabelle is brought to life so successfully that it almost seemed like an additional character in First Come Twins. More importantly, the book features a likeable and realistic tortured hero and a troubled heroine. It is the best category romance I’ve read this year. Fifteen years…
Janice Kay Johnson is one of my few auto-buy category romance writers. Snowbound not only reinforces her status, it moves the book to the top of my list for the author. The book begins with a vivid, terrifying drive through the Cascade Mountains. Fiona MacPherson, a teacher at a private high school in Portland, is…
It seems to me that romance readers are always worrying over the “forced seduction” book. Is it coming back? Is it really about rape? Can violent, abusive men be heroes? I loved Whispering Rock because it made those stories look shallow. Here all of the pain and suffering that someone experiences after an assault are…
The number of series romance authors who are auto buys for me is shrinking down to a very few, but Marilyn Pappano is still one of them. When I saw Somebody’s Hero on the shelf, I snapped it up immediately. It is very loosely connected to two of her earlier titles, Somebody’s Baby and Somebody’s…
I rarely read series romance, as I find that the shorter format tends to work against the kind of plot development and characterizations that I most enjoy. But there is one I picked up on a whim some years ago – Debra Dixon’s Bad to the Bone – that simply knocked my socks off. Not…
Anyone who read Shay’s original America’s Bravest trilogy remembers being left hanging by the final scene in Code of Honor, when the heroine’s sister ran off after New Year’s Eve kiss with the man she’s been butting heads the entire book. For all of you who’ve been waiting for Delaney Shaw and Reed Macauley’s story,…