Ale sent me some lovely prezzies. Look! I am so excited that I may review something other than a kissing book for once and I have already bookmarked the dresses I will be having made when I get around to winning the lottery. There may have been (totally there was) some Kermit flailing especially when I looked through What People Wore When and saw how thorough it was. Oh joy! Oh rapture! Thank you to faintingviolet for organizing the exchange and thank you to Ale […]
Regency Romance Comfort Food with Enough Bite
Oh, Mary Balogh, reading one of your Regency romances is like slipping into a warm bath. Comfortable, always enjoyable and relaxing, you are so wonderfully consistent in your heartfelt stories about broken people finding a kindred spirit to fit their pieces to. Only a Promise is book six in Balogh’s current series, Survivors’ Club, and one I greatly enjoyed. The full series, so far, is as follows – The Proposal The Suitor The Arrangement The Escape Only Enchanting – also particularly enjoyable Only a Promise […]
Imperfect Courtney Milan, Is Still Courtney Milan
Courtney Milan is the best, the very best, romance writer currently publishing, but she is not perfect and Once Upon a Marquess is a delightfully imperfect novel. Her trademark elements – eloquence, unexpected romantic moments, family politics, deciding for oneself who one will be – are here, they just don’t come together quite as successfully as they have in some of her previous efforts. The first book in her new Worth Saga, Milan is laying a lot of groundwork and she is mostly successful in […]
Historical Romance and Visits with Favourite Characters
I have an addition to the Things That Occur to Me While Reading Historical Romance Novels: LUST IS IMPERVIOUS TO COLD. Never mind all those times people in these books get down to their skivvies in drafty old manor houses, lust’s powers are even greater than I supposed. How else could a person wearing a linen shift and corset while standing barefoot in a snow squall be aware of anything than the fact that she is bitterly cold? But I have gotten ahead of myself. […]