The Russian Word for Snow is one woman’s true account of her Russian adoption. It’s the story of how she persevered through bureaucracy and corruption, fear and anxiety, to get her son out of a Russian orphanage and make a family of three out of herself, her husband and little Alex. The book’s title refers…
A Countess Below Stairs was the first Eva Ibbotson romance I ever read, and I’ve been an avid fan ever since. Why? Because her stories are so vivid. In A Countess Below Stairs, Anna Grazinsky, a White Russian in exile goes to work as a housemaid in a beautiful mansion called Meersham. The owner is…
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…
I’m pretty biased as a fiction person, myself. I occasionally read other things, but only rarely. So it’s pure coincidence that, upon finding Spy Dust on the list of review options, I recognized one of the authors’ names as someone I’d read before, in his first book The Master Of Disguise (which, by the way,…
It is a rare Regency Romance indeed that can tackle adult issues while still maintaining the usual light, spirited Regency tone. With only a few caveats, The Storybook Hero does just that, giving me another author to add to my glom list. Octavia Hadley is penniless, and rather than foolishly turn her nose up at…
It is the 1540s. Suleiman the Magnificent is the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The tsar of Russia is a man who will someday be known as Ivan the Terrible. England is ruled by the boy-king Edward VI. Mary Queen of Scots is four, and she will be used as a pawn in the high-stakes…
Aaron Elkins has written sixteen books, but I just discovered him. My Lucky Day. While Elkins’ other fifteen books deal with forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, Loot introduces a new leading man. Ben Revere is known as the Boston Art Cop because, as a former curator and an art historian, he has helped the police in…
I define a “Desert Isle Keeper” as a book that sticks in my mind long after I’ve read the last page, a book I’ll re-read and think about, one I’d recommend to all and sundry. Usually I can give someone lots of information about a DIK read – but not in this case. This is…
Splendor wasn’t bad. I hadn’t heard of Brenda Joyce before picking up the book, so I didn’t have any particular expectations (like I do before starting a Julie Garwood). Although the characters and the situation were not entirely believable, the book was packed with lots of conflict, action, and interesting historical facts. I can say…