Island Queen is a very good novel about a very extraordinary woman that feels like a return to epic sagas about strong women persevering against the impossible popular in the 1970s – think A Woman of Independent Means or The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. But Island Queen is based on the real life of…
Chanel Miller’s Know My Name is a devastating memoir. It was a must-read for me, but the pain and fear and frustration in this book is so raw and immediate that I had to wait for the right frame of mind to tackle it. Nevertheless, it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year,…
In It Happens All the Time, author Amy Hatvany takes a closer look at a story we’ve all heard time and time again. Date/acquaintance rape is an issue that receives relatively little attention in fiction, and Ms. Hatvany has done a stellar job of drawing our attention to this very serious problem. Amber and Tyler…
As I read Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It, I had mixed feelings. I hated the story; it was not a pleasant read, and it left me feeling unsatisfied. Ironically though, the reason why I now appreciate it so much is because of how uncomfortable and angry I was while and after reading it. I knew going…
Readers who have followed Grace Burrowes’ Lonely Lords from the beginning may recall the heroine of this book – Lady Avis Portmaine – as the sister of the heroine of the third, Ethan: Lord of Scandals. In that story, we learned that governess Alice Portman (in reality Lady Alexandra Portmaine) had been injured during her…
Consensual sex is the theme of this thoughtful romance set in college. Freshman Jacqueline ignored her interests to follow her boyfriend Kennedy to the college of his choice. Then she signs up for an economics class because of him. Fortunately, this state of affairs doesn’t last as Jacqueline not only finds her own identity, but…
Perhaps my favorite novella in romance is This Wicked Gift, written and published by Ms. Milan in 2009. In it, Ms. Milan presents a hero who forces the heroine to make love with him. Things, however, are not what they seem, and in that tale, what the hero thinks is forced is really a gift…
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…
By the time this review is posted, many Robin Schone fans will already have read Gabriel’s Woman and decided how they feel about it. Before reading this book, I checked out reviews of this author’s previous efforts, including posts to various lists. Some readers have loved it, others have not. Some felt it was not…
Now here’s a book you can’t judge by its cover, or rather, by its title. Yes, it’s about desire, more like ire and desire. . . The story starts with a beating, the one of a mother before the eyes of her daughter; the ultimate test of power of a greedy, blood thirsty 12th Century,…