When Stars Rain Down is a lyrical tale of family, friendship and romance. Taking place during the Jim Crow Era South, it celebrates how love can bloom even under the most difficult of circumstances. Due to the setting, there are depictions of violence – both verbal and physical – perpetrated against Blacks by racists. Opal…
Melissa Scholes Young’s terrific southern coming of age tale is an interesting character portrait that manages to combine an emotional slice-of-life tale with a feminist mien that makes the entire experience a fascination. The Fehler Sisters – teenage Tammy and Kate, college-bound Jules, and recent high school graduate Maggie – are living in Missouri together…
What I love about Liz Johnson’s work is the way her flow of words brings you along so effortlessly that suddenly you’re halfway through the book and not quite sure how you got there – but you know you enjoyed every second of the journey. A Dazzle of Diamonds is part of the author’s Georgia…
Daughters of Jubilation is a powerful read. Imbued with a beautiful, graceful sense of strength, it comes out swinging with a heroine who has a wonderfully memorable voice. Sixteen-year-old Evalene – Evvie – Deschamps is growing up in a Jim Crow Era mid-south, helping to care for her younger twin half-sisters, crushing on cool older…
“Nice Southern girls did not make money baking penis cakes” Some romance novels are just nice times spent with pleasant people you want to see succeed in life. Gimme Some Sugar fits that bill beautifully. Six months after the death of her husband Wayne, Lucy Bowman Garten is trying to start over by moving from…
Laura Trentham’s world of Cottonbloom is one of my current favorites in contemporary romance. It’s a fictional town, half in Mississippi and half in Louisiana, and there’s a vast socioeconomic difference between the two halves, as well as an overlapping history between its citizens. Set the Night on Fire is the sixth work set in…
An AAR Top 100 Romance originally published on March 26, 1998 So often heroes and heroines of romances are larger-than-life characters. Lords, ladies, knights, cowboys, and swashbuckling types in general. There’s nothing wrong with that, we all like a little wish fulfillment and fantasy in our reading. After all, if we read nothing but books…
Sutton Mize is having her fiancé’s classic convertible restored as a surprise. Unfortunately, he also has a surprise in store for her – Sutton finds a pair of underwear in said car that is Not Hers. Even worse, they belong to her best friend. Thankfully, this discovery is made in the presence of Wyatt Abbot,…
Amanda Hardy is starting over in a new town, where nobody knows her big secret – she is transgender. After a suicide attempt, she completed a full transition (including hormones and surgery) to female. When, as part of trying to establish herself in a new female life, Amanda also falls in love with Grant, her…
a DIKlassic review review originally published on February 22, 2001 I was a little doubtful when I picked up Into the Woods, because it’s based on the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.” Have you read it lately? “Hansel and Gretel” is about two children who are abandoned like an unwanted litter of puppies by their…