Amanda Stevens: The Restorer

From the back of the book-

Never acknowledge the dead.
Never stray far from the hallowed ground.
Never associate with those who are haunted.
Never tempt fate.
My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to these rules passed down from my father. But now John Devlin, a haunted police detective, has entered my world and everything is changing.
It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalised body in an old graveyard I've been hired to restore. The clues to the killer-and to his other victims-lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret.
John needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.
This story offered an interesting spin on the traditional murder mystery and I found myself pulled in from the very start.
The main characters have a depth that I didn't expect to find in pulp fiction and their budding romance is entirely realistic.
The mystery itself is intriging without becoming overly complicated and kept me guessing until the end without introducing unbelievable twists. Which isn't to say that things don't become quite dramatic as the story reaches its climax because they do.
Overall an enjoyable light read that can stand alone, though I am pleased to discover that it is the first in an anticipated quartet. Naturally I will be continuing with this series.-Lynn

About Last Night – Adele Parks

When cool new student Philippa-call-me-Pip Foxton decided she was her new best friend it transformed Stephanie Amstell’s life- formerly invisible and destined to a life of suburban mediocrity, she was now popular and interesting, and she had the confidence to go with it. It was a change that Steph would forever be grateful for.
Thirty years later Steph and Pip’s roles have reversed –Steph’s happily married to hard-working Julian and following their life plan; they moved to the country to raise their three boys, and Steph’s days area busy whirl of perfection creation. Pip, however, is a single mother,abandoned after three years of fighting and affairs by the father of her only child and virtually penniless. Mired in depression, furious at her cheating and untraceable ex, and lost for purpose, it’s only thanks to Steph’s emotional and financial support that she and Chloe are okay.
Steph loves her life, and she loves her best friend, but the one-way street is starting to get old. Why can’t Pip take some responsibility? She knew the meeting Steph encouraged her to make with a buyer from Selfridge’s would mean she couldn’t drop Chloe off at school, for example, but waited until morning to ask Steph to do it for her.
For Pip, so overwhelmed by anger, grief, shock and betrayal for the past two years, just functioning has been hard, but she’s ready for a change. In one day,, thanks to a combination of her artistic ability and chance, she not only gets a commission from the buyer but also meets a man – a man different from those she’s been attracted to in the past, a man who could possibly be her future. And on the same day Steph’s life changes forever, when she discovers her husband is having an affair.
About Last Night was engaging from a psychological perspective, but I was disappointed by its predictability – while there were certainly a couple of small surprises, but no twists and for the most part I guessed what was going to happen early on. For example, as soon as I read about how Steph replaced one set of perfectly functional crockery for another, and how Julian didn’t notice this or other domestic changes, I knew that she was replacing fulfilment and happiness for consumerism and the pursuit of a perfect-appearing life, and that Julian was having an affair.
There’s a lot of description and not a lot of dialogue, and the shifting third person perspective (primarily Steph, Pip, Julian and the thoroughly unlikeable mistress, Kirsten) allowed for different points of view but reduced my engagement.
This certainly isn’t to say that I disliked About Last Night, but I would have liked to be surprised more often. Certainly the plot device of “incomplete information leading to (contextually believable but avoidable) misunderstanding that changes everything” was disappointing, though a reflection of a number of issues.
There were several things that I really liked, from the idea of having a day (or perhaps just a meal) where every food begins with the same letter (“Chocolate, cherries, croissants, cake, crisps. Cashew nuts.”), to a really lovely scene that retrospectively redeemed Julian for me - experiencing the familiar symptoms of pregnancy after three boys, Steph doesn’t take a test and attributes minor differences between this and her previous pregnancies to it finally being a girl. She and Julian discuss names, focusing on Dairy, Rose and Lily. Sudden, crippling pain brings the unwelcome revelation that, rather than “growing a beautiful baby girl” Steph has ovarian cysts and will be unable to conceive again. The response of everyone around her is that there wasn’t a baby, and thus no need to grieve; Julian takes her to the beach, where he’s laid out a picnic feast par excellence, complete with Krug to toast themselves,and a bouquet of roses, daisies and lilies.
Kirsten is portrayed throughout the book as shallow, self-centred and immature; I was disappointed to have her redeemed in the final pages, by the love of a good man who's inexplicably interested in her. It was almost as though an editor told Parks she couldn't have an unwrapped end, and it didn't fit with the rest of her character arc - had that been the intent all along I think better ground work could have been laid.
Certainly I kept reading About Last Night 'til the end, and it's not a bad choice if you're going on holiday and want something moderately more substantial than your average beach book, but that won't make you work. I just wish there'd been a little less predictability about the whole thing. - Alex

Gail Carriger: Soulless

From the back of the book-
First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.
Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire-and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.
With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia is responsibe. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?
I was almost put off this book in the first chapter when the heroine is found at a ball with a parasol. It just seemed so very wrong. However, I gave it a chance and I'm glad I did, things improve as the story goes on.
The world building is very good. Here paranormal creatures are recognised members of society. And just like the rest of society they are neither all good nor all bad but each species has its mixture of both. Cultural differences between the old and new world attitudes to the paranormal are wide but believable. Best of all, to my mind, the author doesn't get bogged down explaining the technology but focuses on the structure of society and her characters place within it.
The overall tone is light-hearted and there are some comic moments thanks to a vapid mother and half sisters and a best friend with no taste in hats.
I quite enjoyed this steampunk with a paranormal twist and I will be following up the rest of the series, with one tiny caveat. I'll be leaving quite some time between tales. Though I found the book vastly entertaining I feel that too much of this author's voice too soon would get irritating and I don't wan to spoil my fun.-Lynn

Claudia Dain: The Courtesan's Daughter

A woman's infamous past is preventing her daughter from attaining a suitable match. Her pragmatic solution is to buy the girl a husband. She chooses an acceptable man, buys up his substantial debts, then offers him a clean slate if he agrees to her proposal. The daughter is outraged by her mother's action and refuses point blank to marry a man who could be bought for the purpose.
Then she sees him. And wants him. But only if he wants her in return, not her mother's money. And she can see only one way he could prove his devotion. He must be willing to pay for her.
She attempts to set herself up as a courtesan with dramatic consequences. Needless to say, in the end she gets her man.
This was, dare I say it, a genuine romp. A believable, well written romance with plenty of fun along the way. The naivety of the daughter to the realities of her mother's premarital way of life, together with the unglamorous details of the mother's memories of her courtesan days felt true. The hero managed to be heroic in spite of his less than ideal situation.
Sure, this is no accurate portrait of social history but let go and enjoy a frolic with this novel twist on the historical romance genre.

Angela Knight: Jane's Warlord

A time travelling serial killer is on the loose in a small town with a genetically engineered warrior hot on his trail. Knowing he has only days before the next murder, he decides to set a trap for his quarry, using the historically recorded next victim as bait.
But he doesn't expect to have such strong feelings for the victim, let alone that those feelings would be returned. He must convince her of his identity and mission and enlist her help if they both are to have nay chance of stopping a madman and surviving. But history says she died. Should he change that even if he can? What would be the consequences?
Naturally all is resolved successfully and they get a happy ever after, way after, three hundred years into the future.
Generally I like time travel as a plot device and I enjoy romance so this should have been a winner, sadly it didn't live up to its potential.
I got a strong "Terminator" vibe all the way through that had me feeling like I'd seen it all done bigger and better before. The characters, plot, the whole story really, felt thin and second hand which is a shame because occasional glimpses made me think the author has the talent to deliver better. This story needed to be bigger than a romance and the hero more than a knight in shining armour. Fleshing out the moral dilemmas of time travel would have been a good start.
Overall a bit disappointing because I could see so clearly what might have been.-Lynn

Ann Herendeen: Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander

Seeking both escape from her overbearing mother and the freedom society only awards to a married woman, a young authoress accepts a proposal from a wealthy sodomite. She will not interfere with his chosen lifestyle while providing him with an heir, he will allow her to continue writing gothic novels and gift her with a small estate of her own on the birth of a son.
What neither of them anticipates is the development of genuine affection and the young woman’s erotic response to her husband’s homosexual behaviour. She welcomes his lover into their life and all seems set for a happy ever after-until a blackmailer threatens to expose their arrangement.
So begins a series of deceits, each hoping to protect the other with lies that are driving them apart. And it’s not just their relationship that’s at stake. The blackmailer is a suspected French spy sending coded intelligence back to Bonaparte, using his knowledge of their illegal sodomite behaviour to protect himself.
Eventually circumstances reach a head, everything comes out into the open, the blackmailing spy gets his comeuppance and the trio discovers the true depths of their feelings for each other.
This is, to say the least, a unique twist on regency romance and it works well-up to a point. The main characters are reasonably well developed and their motivation entirely believable but from there in I didn’t find things really up to par.
Though there was the obligatory mention of Almack’s I didn’t get any real sense of the period. The quality of the dialogue was uneven; in some places it was delightful, in others abysmal. The behaviour of the men often stepped over the line from unfounded stereotype to caricature and sex in all its glorious variations was often used in place of character or plot development.
This isn’t a bad book, the story is, in fact, quite good but with a decent strong edit it could have been much, much better.
Herendeen is to be congratulated on breaking the mould but competition in the field is tough and as a regency romance this was mediocre.-Lynn

For Alex's review of Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander click here.

Susan Krinard: Dark of the Moon

When a junior female reporter stumbles onto the story of a lifetime (a cult of blood-drinkers is stalking the poor of the city) she finds herself the target of killers. Saved by a vagrant, she determines to save him in return, not realising he is an ex-enforcer for a now disbanded vampire gang. When he learns of the story she is pursuing he tries to dissuade her but she will not be put off and he soon finds himself dragged back into a turf war he became an outcast to escape.
As if being hunted by rival vampire gangs isn’t enough, the two soon find themselves drawn into a cult dedicated to the peaceful co-existence of vampires and humans. But while the cult espouses peace, its methods are anything but peaceful and the pair is in more danger than either of them realise. Soon he is forced to do the unthinkable in order to save her life once more and she must summon the courage to cope with her fate and the compassion to forgive him.
This is the second story set in the paranormal underworld of 1920s New York. It picks up some months after the events of Chasing Midnight but can easily be read as a stand alone novel.
I really enjoy this particular time period and Krinard uses it to great effect in this series bringing the criminal and the supernatural underworld together seamlessly. This story offers plenty of plot twists and while some are easily anticipated, others come as a surprise. Certainly the shifting allegiances and double crossing keeps both the reader and the main characters guessing as to who is and who isn’t on their side. It was a pleasant change to find that there were no clear cut ‘good’ or ‘bad’ guys but simply a choice between a greater and lesser evil for the individual involved. It was a level of realism that brought the fantasy world to life.
I have had both positive and negative experiences with this author in the past so wasn’t really sure of what I could expect from this novel. I needn’t have worried. It was a return to the vivid world building, rounded characterization and fast paced action that drew me to her work in the first place. I’ll definitely be following on with this series.-Lynn

Emma Holly: Prince of Ice

When a disgraced royal demon scheming to regain power by bearing the emperor a child, dies before her plans come to fruition, the daughter she leaves behind is raised alongside a young prince. That is until his affection for the girl starts to worry his parents who turn her out of their house.
Prospects are not good for the unwanted orphan, so when she is given the opportunity to make her fortune as a courtesan she takes the chance.
Her first protector is none other than her childhood friend. But he is no longer the sweet boy she remembers and she is no longer the carefree child she was all those years ago. Not only that, but their stations in life are greatly changed and their interaction is governed by a strict code of behaviour. The two fall in love and as a result face charges of treason and potential death sentences. But the girl’s family blackmail the emperor into accepting banishment rather than execution and the couple leave the isolated world they know to carve a future together in the human world.
I picked this book up because it was supposedly set in the same alternate Victorian universe as The Demon’s Daughter but while the story is set in the same universe, it takes place entirely in the isolated demon world. For all intents and purposes it may as well have been set in the Far East. Everything from the characters’ names and interests to the social structure scream eighteenth century Asia. The technology was entirely modern and while I knew this aspect of the demon world, I was disappointed that the steampunk elements that so attracted me to the first book were missing here.
There is plenty of Holly’s trademark erotica to be found within the pages which is technically well done but I feel wasn’t quite up to her usual standard. The ruling class genitalia and hormone cycles seemed both unnecessarily complicated and unbelievable (the royal males are physically different to common males but status is at the whim of the emperor-hmmm?).
Overall, not a bad book, particularly if you are a fan of the friends-to-lovers storyline, but certainly not what I had hoped for.-Lynn

Susan Krinard: Lord of Legends

A young bride, abandoned on her wedding night and blamed by her mother-in-law for her husband’s absence, is left at her husband’s country estate. While wandering the grounds she discovers a man imprisoned in a folly. Seemingly insane, she takes pity on him and her kindness is rewarded when the man proves to be merely suffering from amnesia rather than insanity.
Unfortunately when he finally remembers who and what he is, he also remembers why he was imprisoned in the first place. He is king of the unicorns cursed to live as a man in the mortal world until he can lure his young carer into the clutches of an evil Fane Lord.
As he works to gain her trust he finds himself falling in love with the pretty virgin and unable to condemn her to a life of virtual imprisonment.
Eventually he explains all to her and once the questions of each other’s sanity are answered they band together to thwart the Fane Lord, break his curse and live happily ever after.
It’s been a while since I read a fantasy novel and I thought this one by an author I’ve enjoyed in the past would be a good one to slip back into the genre with, however this book was not what I expected. While there is undoubtedly a fantasy element to the story, it very much takes a back seat. I would class this book as first and foremost an historical romance with full fantasy elements only making an appearance in the last two chapters.
As a romance it didn’t rate particularly highly for me. Evidence of the hero’s supposed love of the heroine was thin on the ground and the heroine came off as just a little bland. It also suffered from the, unfathomable to me, American transplanted heroine syndrome. A great deal is made of the heroine’s American heritage and a rather convoluted explanation is given as to how and why her family ended up in America. Then another unlikely set of circumstances occurs for her to end up back on the English estate where the bulk of the story takes place. The plot is saved by a fascinating cast of secondary characters.
Though the story isn’t bad I had hoped for more from this author given how much I’ve enjoyed her other works. I finish it just a little disappointed but with hopes for the sequel (starring the more interesting secondary characters) high.-Lynn

Joanna Bourne: The Spymaster's Lady

A British spymaster must enter France and bring back a brilliant, dangerous and elusive French spy who knows the details of Napoleon’s plans to invade England.
When the two of them end up in the same dungeon they form an uneasy alliance in order to escape the French secret police. Once they achieve freedom the French spy wants to go her own way but the British spymaster is determined to bring her in.
The pair is hunted through France and the French spy manages to escape both her British captor and her murderous countrymen. But her freedom is short lived. She is recaptured and finds herself in Britain where the two rivals become lovers while she plans her escape.
She soon learns that the British are not the only ones interested in what she knows and that the French have issued an order for her death.
She is torn between loyalty to France and the safe haven offered by her lover for the price of Napoleon’s plans. Making the only decision she can live with she escapes the British and presents herself to the French bargaining for her life by naming traitors to the French cause.
Her lover finds her at the French spy safe house and convinces his French counterpart to release her into his custody claiming, falsely, that she has been a British plant the entire time. Deals are done.
She is free to choose her own future. Naturally it will include her British spymaster.
This story is what happens when a great plot meets fantastic characterisation and good research. I loved it.
The heroine was intelligent, competent, talented and determined. The hero was pure alpha but believably vulnerable. There was a little bit of the victor’s version of history (the British spies didn’t use indiscriminate torture like the French spies) but not so much as to be completely unbelievable of the period.
There are a number of surprise twists that are unexpected but not unbelievable. And the ending got the heroine neatly out of a seemingly impossible moral dilemma.
This is historical romance as it should be written.-Lynn

Jo Goodman: If His Kiss is Wicked

Retiring by nature and the poor relative by circumstance a woman lives in the shadow of her exuberant cousin. When that cousin makes a foolish assignation behind her fiancé’s back she asks the woman to go in her place and call off the affair. The woman is found days later, badly beaten, with no memory of the intervening time and convinced somebody is trying to kill her. But nobody will believe that she is in any danger and there are whispers of madness.
In desperation she turns to a barely respectable gentleman who has made a name for himself helping people out of compromising positions and heading off scandals.
He uncovers a veritable closet full of skeletons and extracts the young woman from a web of fraud and deception falling in love with her as he does so.
This summary does no justice whatsoever to this impressive book. A book which I almost did not pick up because of the truly dreadful cover art. But I managed to look past that and I’m glad I did.
Full of suspense and a touch of the erotic, this historical romance really stands out amongst its peers.
The plot is deceptively simple. Multiple layers are peeled back revealing hints of what’s beneath without exposing the truth of the story too soon. Descriptions rich with detail somehow blend seamlessly into the background. The characters are beautifully drawn with completely believable reactions and behaviour for their time and circumstance.
I am delighted to discover Jo Goodman has an extensive back list and I will certainly be looking her up next time I am in the mood for historical romance.-Lynn

Sharron McClellan: Hidden Sanctuary

A dowser, whose talent is refined enough to allow her to detect anything within the earth, is drilling for oil in the Nubian desert when she strikes an extremely powerful energy source. Tracing the source she discovers a cache of ancient mosaic tiles that the locals ascribe protective powers to. When the tiles are stolen she believes she is fated to find, and return, them to the villagers.
She attempts this in vain and soon realises that in order to reclaim the tiles she must trust the security guard whose job it is to report her every discovery to the company. The company that she believes not only sanctioned the theft but is willing to kill to keep the tiles in their possession.
The unlikely allies track the tiles across Europe risking their lives to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands and uncovering an unexpected love along the way.
This is the fifth book in the Madonna Key series and, I think, the weakest link in the seven book series so far.
I must be up-front and admit that of all the plots in the series this is the only one that didn’t really appeal to me as a story line. And the execution didn’t change my mind. At every pivotal point along the way I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. The cameo of characters from previous episodes felt entirely contrived. I couldn’t relate to the heroine at all. In fact, I found all of the characters to be superficial, both in their development and in their described personalities. And the romance (this is a Harlequin series, after all) was the least believable element of the plot. There was no sexual tension to speak of though there was action aplenty which made for a brisk pace. I honestly can not see what this book added to the series. I can only assume all will be made clear in the finale.
I really like the concept of this series and most of the plots presented so far piqued my interest but the quality of the individual instalments has been uneven. The series opened with a bang but is suffering from a sagging middle. If I had read this particular story earlier I would not have continued with the series. As it is there are only two books to go and I feel that I’ve invested so much time in the series I may as well follow it through to the end. Fingers crossed it’s worth the effort.-Lynn

Sandra Schwab: Castle of the Wolf

Rather than accept the status of poor relation in her brother’s house and tolerate the whims of his shrewish wife, a young woman decides to accept the terms of her father’s will that enable her to escape this dreaded fate. He has left her a castle in the Black Forest but in order to become its mistress she must marry the son of its former owner.
The man in question, wounded physically by war and spiritually by love, has no idea the castle no longer belongs to his family and doesn’t accept the news that his future is dependant on a woman very well.
Naturally, two such spirited individuals clash constantly but for the sake of both their futures they do the logical thing and marry. It is not until they face an attempt on their lives that they realise just how much they have come to mean to each other.
True love triumphs and they, in the best of traditions, live happily ever after.
Being a huge fan of the, sadly rare, old style Gothic Romance I really enjoyed this spin on the old beauty and the beast story with its strong gothic leanings.
The characterization was great; this pair danced right off the page. The heroine was strong and determined and the hero brooding enough to be enigmatic but not so much as to be off-putting.
At times the plot became a little transparent (I found it quite obvious who was behind the ‘accidents’) but in all fairness to the author, I think that may have been done deliberately.
I am delighted to discover somebody reinvigorating the dark romance, and am please that this work is more polished than her debut novel. I begin to expect big things from Ms Schwab and won’t leave it so long before I read her again.-Lynn

Meg Cabot: Size 12 Is Not Fat

Dumped by her record company for refusing to sing anymore prefabricated songs, left by her fiancé for a rising star rival, and scammed out of her fortune by her own mother, a former teen pop idol is forced to take a job in a college dorm.
With her former brother-in-law to be giving her a place to live and slowly making new friends, she’s beginning to get her life back on track-until the girls in her dorm start to die with alarming frequency.
Officially the deaths are due to elevator surfing but she has suspicions otherwise and sets out to prove that the women have, in fact, been murdered.
She succeeds in uncovering the murderer and their motive but almost loses her life in the process.
This was a fun crime novel in the chick lit style. There is a touch of romance but it takes a back seat to the other action.
The heroine is heard to repeat the title several times throughout the book which I found a little trying, but only a little.This story isn’t a stand out, either positively or negatively. It’s just an easy light-hearted read and doesn’t try to be anything else. And sometimes that’s all you want.-Lynn

Barbara Michaels: Someone in the House

An academic is invited to spend the summer at a friend and colleague’s house where the two of them hope to finish a text they have been collaborating on.
But the atmosphere at the isolated gothic manor is not conductive to work. Days of tennis, swimming and house parties are followed by evenings of needlepoint, crosswords and novels. At first the academic believes her change in interests is a factor of the summer holidays and her growing romantic interest in her host a product of their relaxed time together. But she soon begins to suspect that there is a more sinister force at work behind the changes in her personality.
Convinced that the house is haunted she teams up with the other house guests-her host’s aunt and her friend-and the local vicar to set the spirits to rest. This is achieved with ease but the academic still finds herself unsettled. It is only when her host proposes to her that she comes to understand what is happening.
The house itself is sentient and is ensuring its own survival by forcing contentment upon all its inhabitants.
She escapes back to her old life, regains her personality and counts herself lucky to have escaped.
I’ve been undecided about Barbara Michaels’s work. Of the two other works of hers I’ve read one was terrible, the other, quite good, so this book was a bit of a decider for me.
Sadly it contained many of the elements that I didn’t like in work I’d previously read. Particularly an absentee boyfriend that is introduced only to be more or less ignored for the rest of the book, and more detail about character’s pets than strictly necessary. The female characters were the type of humourless Feminists that were already going the way of the dinosaurs when this book was written but they were an even match for the male characters who were patronizing at best, if not completely misogynistic.
Having said that when in form, this author can deliver a great sense of place and a good story. But for me the inconsistent, uneven writing was too great a cost for the rare payoff of a good passage.
For me this book falls somewhere between the previous two Michaels I have read. Not awful but not great either. From my experience Michaels writing is mediocre at best. I’m glad I gave it a chance but I see no reason to try this author again.-Lynn

Pam Rosenthal: The Edge of Impropriety

A widowed countess, left impoverished by her husband’s first family, turns to writing popular novels to make ends meet. For publicity purposes she fosters an image, not entirely false, of hedonism that boarders on scandalous. Blackmailed by a former servant who knew her when she was young, wild and trading on her beauty, she must keep her past a secret from society if not to ruin her career.
The release of her latest book coincides with her meeting a retiring scholar and antiquarian with whom, against all odds and expectations, she has a torrid affair. Wanting nothing more than a fling with a mystery lover that will set tongues wagging and sales soaring, she is shocked when her feelings for him take an unpredictable turn (she has never taken a lover for longer than a season before). But if she is to have any hope of winning the love of her current paramour he must not find out about her past.
Discovering the direction of her affections, the blackmailer threatens to tell all, unless she bestows her favours upon him in addition to her monthly cash payments. She can’t go through with the deal and writes a Dear John letter to her lover detailing all of her colourful past and makes plans to run away to the continent before the truth of her history is widely known.
Against a background of break-ins, thefts, and questionable deaths the lovers manage to sift through the many, many obstacles in their paths and accept each other for who they are, not were or might have been. While not expressed a happy ending for the two is heavily implied.
As an historical romance I found this book to be no better, or worse, than others of its kind. Its novelty was in its erotic nature. The premise for the affair was believable, as was the affair itself. In spite of the characters wildly different natures their paring seemed quite natural. The writing was sensual, giving erotic detail tastefully. The plot held its own and was not merely a vehicle for tying together a series of sex scenes.
I would read more of this author’s work should it cross my path.-Lynn

Laura Anne Gilman: Curse the Dark

When sent to Italy to trace the whereabouts of a very old and dangerous artefact a retriever finds herself in a dire situation. The artefact turns out to have been one of a collection of unstable black magic pieces that have been stored for centuries by an order of ‘monks’.
The trail ultimately leads her back home to a city full of magical creatures on the brink of war with each other. Undoubtedly the artefact is feeding off the discord. She just needs to decommission it and collect her cheque before all hell breaks loose.
This she manages but in the final showdown she is forced to choose between helping her long time partner and new lover or an old friend. She is left devastated by the casualty count and the increased political unrest, which is edging its way slowly towards open war, left in its wake.
I enjoyed this book just as much as the last one.
This story was more of a vehicle to showcase the developing romance between the main characters but it did not neglect plot in favour of that. I particularly like that discovering their love has not changed the personalities of the protagonists. The heroine’s conflict over wanting to be with her new lover but craving her own space is realistic.
A great plot overlays the ongoing political intrigue. The story offers greater insight into a believable and coherent magical world, including the downside of being a magic user. And again the seeds of future works are sown discretely into the story.
I see that there are several more books in this series (just as I had predicted/hoped) and I am tempted to read them all back to back but glutting rare does any series a favour so I will hold off on the next instalment for now but look forward to reading it next year.-Lynn

Nora Roberts: Dance Upon The Air

An abused wife fakes her death and runs. She eventually reaches a small island where she feels safe to settle down. She opens up a small business, makes friends with the locals and starts to practice witchcraft (a long tradition of the island said to have been originally settled by witches). She even feels free to fall in love again.
But a chance sighting by an old friend leads her estranged husband to her door. Angry and determined to reclaim her he stabs her new lover, the local sheriff, and when she runs he chases her. Her new friends come to her rescue and with a combination of magic and the law he is forced from her life for good.
If you remove the magic elements (which were very much a side issue) this book is pretty much a written version of the movie Sleeping with the Enemy.
Given the International Bestseller claims of the cover and the recommendations of friends, I thought to find, at the very least, surprising new twists in the plot and possibly writing that sparked and danced across the page. The writing wasn’t bad but neither was it exceptionally good. And given the rave reviews I’ve seen of this author’s works I expected something outstanding. What I got was competent handling of a much told story carried along by interesting secondary characters. And it is the presence of those secondary characters that had me finish the book.
This is the first in a trilogy and in its secondary characters was the promise of more interesting stories to come. I hope that is the case since I have committed to reading the next two books.
Overall far from the worst I’ve ever read but also far from the best too.-Lynn

Susan Krinard: Chasing Midnight

When an inexperienced young werewolf wanders into a Greenwich Village speakeasy looking for adventure she soon finds more than she bargains for. She is saved by a vampire and her friends who take the young innocent under their wings and chaperone her through a night of jazz and gin. Eventually she is found in this most undesirable company by her brother, who is put in the awkward position of being indebted to one of the werewolves’ age old enemies, a vampire.
Matters are further complicated when the vampire’s search for a missing friend, who just happens to be the daughter of a local crime lord, crosses paths with the werewolf’s search for the same woman. The two are thrown together by circumstance and the more the uptight and proper werewolf gets to know the loose-moraled vampire the more he likes her and vice versa.
But their respective races don’t approve of the relationship and they are individually pulled reluctantly into power struggles within their respective clans. Eventually gang war breaks out between the werewolves, vampires and human crime bosses as well as in the ranks of each group. And they are the only two people who can possibly put an end to it.
1920’s America, with prohibition and gang warfare, lends itself beautifully to rival races fighting for supremacy and stories of star crossed lovers. I’m surprised the period has been overlooked in the past and I’m delighted to find it featured here.
This complex plot of shifting allegiances and the clashing belief systems of the eighteenth century and modern times was fast paced and action packed.
My copy of the book was poorly edited or proof read and there are at least three instances where dialogue is attributed to a character not in the scene. I was a little confused by that but not sufficiently frustrated to stop reading. Only at one point was I pulled out of the story and unfortunately it was with quite a forceful yank. When the protagonists enter a blood covered but empty room the author refers to forensics. I’m not sure whether or not forensic science existed then in the form it does now but either way I’m pretty sure it would not have been referred to as simply “forensics”. Apart from this one slip the story was a lot of fun and I was sorry to get to the end of the book.
More time could have been spent establishing the whys and wherefores of vampirism but it was adequately covered-I was just enjoying it so much I would like to have seen more.
An enjoyable read and I look forward to reading more of this author’s work-Lynn

Jo Beverley: A Lady's Secret

When a notorious rake hears a nun cursing in a French Inn he is immediately captivated. Bored and seeking amusement, he offers to help her reach England. She accepts and the rake gets more than he bargained for because although she is fresh from three years in a convent, this lady is no nun. She is, in fact, the bastard daughter of an English lord desperately seeking her father’s protection now that her mother is dead and a rejected lover is stalking her through Europe.
So begins an historical road trip story. The pair flees France in disguise having adventures involving murderous prostitutes, smugglers, kidnapping and romantic encounters before reaching their destination.
Once in England the woman finds her father and is acknowledged by him but his name doesn’t provide the protection she hoped for. Her jilted lover attempts to take her from a masquerade but her rakish hero saves her. We are led to believe that the two live happily ever after.
I must be honest and admit that I read this book some time ago and though I remember liking it at the time I am hard pressed now to remember what about it appealed to me in particular.
I was surprised by the ease with which the heroine was accepted by a rich and powerful father that didn’t know of her existence until she showed up on his doorstep but sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief for the sake of the story.
It was nice that the heroine wasn’t a retiring virgin nor a feisty woman-of-the-world. She was no innocent. She’d had a lover but things hadn’t worked out and she was in no hurry to take another but neither was she trying to hide her ‘shame’ which was realistic and refreshing.
A few familiar characters from an earlier work made an appearance near the end of this book and it’s always fun to catch up with old ‘friends’.
In the end this was like a lazy summer afternoon-enjoyable at the time but nothing made it stand out from all the others of its ilk and while remembered with a general fondness for its kind this particular one is, only a few weeks later, ultimately forgettable.-Lynn