You might need to suspend some logic when it comes to enjoying The Treasures of Venice by Loucinda McGary. But if you do, enjoy it you will. Sam Lewis was supposed to be on her honeymoon, and when her fiancé broke things off at the last minute, she decided to go to Italy anyway. While…
Fans of old school romance a la Kathleen Woodiwiss will take Veiled Passions to their hearts. Unlike Woodiwisses’s tomes though, this book is not overwritten although it is lush. It features larger than life characters and one of the most romantic, wounded heroes I have ever encountered. If only the heroine hadn’t been such a…
Conceptually, The Rossetti Letter is similar to Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series: Both tell the modern day stories of doctoral candidates in Europe, searching for a mystery lost in the crumbling papers and bound books of the past, and at the same time recounting the historical story about the people they are researching. However, this…
Writing reviews is normally pretty easy for me. But I’ve been putting off writing this one for days now and I think I finally figured out why. When a book is this good, it’s a challenging task to make certain I’ve adequately conveyed that fact to readers. To put my reaction to this book into…
A Notorious Woman begins in grand fashion. Set during Carnival in 16th century Venice, it is obvious from the outset that this story will be full of intrigue, and that readers will have to pay attention to the various twists and turns of the plot. Perfumer Julietta Bassano has been summoned to the home of…
Miranda Jarrett is an author I’d forgotten about. Years ago, I read a few of her books and then glommed a bunch more, but they got lost in the bottomless tbr pile. Then I came across The Adventurous Bride and thought I’d give it a go. It’s a road romance full of unusual settings (like…
Sometimes a love story is so beautifully written that it makes book a pleasure to read; at other times an author draws a setting so vividly and uses secondary characters and plots to create a book that is enjoyable even if the love story has its flaws. The Defiant Mistress, first in the City of…
For those of us bemoaning the many juvenile and distressingly formulaic historical romances littering bookstores these days, Lydia Joyce gives us reason to celebrate. The Music of the Night, the author’s second novel, is an intelligent and refreshingly different romance between two intelligent and refreshingly different people. It is – these days, at any rate…
The Next Best Thing is part of Arabesque’s Ports of Call series. Each book centers around an exotic locale, in this case Venice. While I do enjoy books with interesting settings, they have to be more than a travelogue to hold my attention, and, unfortunately, this one didn’t amount to much more than that. April…
Having enjoyed several of Susan Wiggs’ recent books (especially The Charm School) I’ve been picking up her older works whenever I find them. And in Lord of the Night, I found a real treat. Sandro Cavalli is a Lord of the Night, one of the aristocratic aids to the doge of Venice who investigate crime…