European Historical Romance
To Pleasure a Duke
When I was growing up, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” was regularly put forth as an argument against premarital sex. This awful phrase…
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A Lily among Thorns
I had hoped to love this book. I thought Ms. Lerner’s debut, In for a Penny, was marvelous. I did not love this book…but I did really like it. And…
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A Bride Unveiled
The first two chapters of Ms. Hunter’s A Bride Unveiled are terrific. Violet Knowlton is thirteen and growing up in the sleepy English town of Monk’s Huntley. She has three…
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A Scoundrel’s Surrender
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover and the couple on the cover of Ms. Petersen’s latest is downright skanky. The chick looks like a stripper at a…
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Seven Years to Sin
Seven Years to Sin commences (and concludes) with coitus. At its start, Lady Jessica Sheffield, on the eve of her wedding, is walking her dog on her fiancé’s estate. The…
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One Night in London: The Truth about the Duke
Reading One Night in London was for me, rather like a date with a really great guy I just couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for. There’s nothing wrong with the…
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How to Seduce a Scoundrel
Ms. Dreiling’s latest novel How to Seduce a Scoundrel is only 396 pages long, but to me it seemed endless. By the time I reached the sappy sentence fragment that…
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The Bed and the Bachelor
Ms. Warren’s latest Byrons of Braebourne historical romance is proof that an author’s competency with prose doesn’t inherently translate into a well-written book. Ms. Warren is a capable writer with…
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Wicked in Your Arms
I so disliked this book — the second in Ms. Jordan’s inexplicably named Forgotten Princesses series – that, after reading it, I put it down, waited several weeks, then picked…
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Waking up with the Duke
In Waking up with the Duke a married woman has an affair with her crippled husband’s best friend. Their story, beautifully written by Lorraine Heath, is a moving and lovely…
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The Bride Wore Scarlet
Halfway through Liz Carlyle’s latest historical romance, The Bride Wore Scarlet, I put it down and went to reread the first book in The Fraternitas Trilogy, Ms. Carlyle’s latest slightly…
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This Perfect Kiss
As a reviewer, I aim to be fair. But true fairness implies a lack of context for each book and I doubt I am quite that impartial. I tend to…
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