I would call myself a tentative Balogh fan. One of my favorite romances is Heartless. I read that book and then, in a frenzy of excitement, snapped up a good deal of her backlist. Unfortunately, I have not found another Balogh that I felt equalled Heartless, and there have been three of her books that…
The Secret Pearl is a book that grips you by the throat from the very first scene, and never lets you go until the end. The first chapter of this book is utterly shocking. A man we have barely met hires a prostitute we know nothing about for a night of his pleasure. As we…
The Lover by Robin Schone brings us a very unusual romantic hero, Michel des Anges, a male prostitute. Michel is tragically scarred both externally and internally. The heroine, Anne Aimes, is a 36-year-old spinster who hires Michel to take her virginity and give her a lifetime of memories. Together they are plunged into a maelstrom…
A Precious Jewel is a most unusual Regency Romance. Indeed, it is one of the most remarkable romance novels I have ever read, Regency or otherwise. The hero is not heroic by most standards. The heroine is a prostitute. My goodness, one asks, what happened to the refined comedy of manners? Where are the rakes…
This is not your typical frontier romance. It features an unfamiliar setting, a disfigured hero, a heroine who is emphatically not a virgin, and a sympathetic villain. In the hands of a lesser writer this combination would spell disaster, but Jill Marie Landis demonstrates once again that she is more than capable of crafting a…
Yes, it’s now six in a row. All of Elizabeth Hoyt’s historical romances have received DIK status here at AAR. As with many readers, I have followed the author since she appeared on the scene in 2006 and read each book as it was published. Two of her previous books earned places on my personal…
I first picked this book up at a used-book store and thought “Omigod, what a lousy cover!” I’m glad I didn’t judge the book by the cover, for this book is surely keeper material. A Rose at Midnight begins with cook Ghislaine de Lorgny planning the murder of her employer’s unscrupulous rakehell cousin, Nicholas Blackthorne….