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Review: A Love by Any Measure by Killian McRae
True love knows no boundaries….true love doesn’t love based on wealth, class, title, or circumstance…..the heart simply wants what it wants: its other half. The only thing that can come between the heart and its desire, is the brain. In Killian McRae’s latest historical romance novel, A Love by Any Measure, the heart and the brain go head to head–will true love win out? August Grayson is an English lord–rich, powerful, titled, and handsome. But in Ireland 1865 he’s called the enemy. Maeve O’Connor is a tenet on Lord Grayson’s land struggling to keep a roof over her and her father’s head. Maeve has nothing but her good looks and good…
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Review: Ivy and Intrigue (A Very Selwick Christmas) by Lauren Willig
After finishing the latest installment of Lauren Willig’s flowery spy series (The Pink Carnation series), I couldn’t resist eking out a little more frivolous adventure by reading this short story/novella: Ivy and Intrigue (A Very Selwick Christmas). Since this is more of a short story, my review will not be as lengthy. I found the novella available for free online through Willig’s website, however I found that reading 100 or so pages on my computer was not ideal so I splurged and spent $0.99 to get it on my iPad through Amazon :). Amy Balcourt has just married the dashing, Lord Richard Selwick (AKA, the flowery spy better known as the…
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Review: The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (Pink Carnation #4) by Lauren Willig
Dapper, dark, mysterious, and mature: Lauren Willig’s latest flowery spy novel, The Seduction of the Crimson Rose was the ‘changeling’ in the series. Each book follows the usual pattern of ‘romance’ between a dashing international man of mystery (typically of peerage) and a virginal debutant. The Crimson Rose is principally the same as the other books, but the love story between Lord Vaughn and Mary Alsworthy is more of an intimate, mature, intellectual love not like the previous books that are more of a fairytale romance….Vaughn and Mary for me were more like Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara. I was actually surprised that the love story was more intellectual in nature….based…
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Review: Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia
There is only one word to describe Debra Anastasia’s novel Poughkeepsie…..elegant. I feel absolutely privileged to review this novel, the cover alone is completely breathtaking and haunting…I couldn’t help but say yes to a review. When I first read the summary, I was not sure that this novel was entirely in my general review genre and I was not sure how the story would fit together as it sounded abstract. I am normally not a huge fan of contempo lit, let alone contempo romance, I feel like contempo lit generally leaves the reader feeling disturbed. Many of the characteristics of contempo lit are feelings of hopelessness, questioning a world that…
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Review: The Deception of the Emerald Ring (Pink Carnation #3) by Lauren Willig
Letty Alsworthy has an appalling nasty habit of being whisked way by seemingly innocent carriages! What was it about her that made everyone within grabbing distance want to and act upon the sudden urge to toss her an anything with wheels, one would be abductor in particular–Lord Geoffrey Pinchingdale Snipe. In Lauren Willig’s latest Pink Carnation romantic spy thriller series, The Deception of the Emerald Ring, Letty Alsworthy finds herself in a precarious situation…her sister Mary is secretly engaged to Lord Pinchingdale and plotting to elope with him. Letty discovers the plot moments before Mary literally flies out the window right along with her reputation….Letty manages to get to Lord Pinchingdale’s…
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Review: The Masque of the Black Tulip (Pink Carnation #2) by Lauren Willig
If the Pink Carnation left you feeling a little wilted and longing to drink in the next flowery caped crusader….look no further, Lauren Willig’s The Masque of the Black Tulip, is sure to quench any lingering thirst readers had! Ravishing and bewitching, the whole Regency era upper-class turned spies with cute horticultural names thing is a force to be reckoned with…these books are simply amazing. I am reading them as part of the Regency & Victorian Reads Challenge over at the Royal Review’s blog. As I was about thirty or so pages out from finishing the first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, I had to stop myself,…
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Review: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation #1) by Lauren Willig
I feel like I just entered the most interesting florist shop in London. I am surrounded by flowers….the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Purple Gentian, and of course the Pink Carnation….but wait I’m in a book! What the deuce are all these flowers doing in a book?? Granted…it’s decidedly less fragrant in the book than in a florist shop but still–what the deuce is going on here? Oh wait….I am reading Lauren Willig’s novel The Secret History of the Pink Carnation! Pink Carnation is just the beginning of the flowery Regency era series. We begin with Amy, born in France she and her mother flee the French Revolution across the Channel to…
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Review: The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Pink Carnation #7) by Lauren Willig
Tis the season for purloined pudding! Christmas pudding, bonnets, love, and mystery are all literary in the air in Lauren Willig’s book The Mischief of the Mistletoe. This book is #4.2 in Willig’s wildly popular Pink Carnation series. I saw this book advertised on Goodreads a few weeks ago and fell in love with the cover and….suddenly I had to read it! So I picked up a copy and then I saw the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge hosted by the True Book Addict and suddenly I couldn’t wait for it to be Christmas season so I could read this book! Biding my time, I started the book the day the challenge started and finished the book…
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Review: Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen
For my birthday a few months ago, my sister got me this book. Both her and I have very similar literary tastes so when she got me this book I was very excited to start reading it–I totally trust her literary judgement, since she is a librarian she knows all the good books/authors :). She had heard lots of good things about it and said she thought it was part of a series but wasn’t sure. She knew the author had written other historic works such as Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV which I saw featured on Goodreads around the same time. Karleen Koen has written four books, Dark Angles,…
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Review: The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks
I think I must be the only girl on earth who hasn’t seen The Notebook. I am just not into Nicholas Sparks, and I had no interest in watching The Notebook let alone reading a Nicholas Sparks novel. However, at the behest of one of my friends, I decided to cave and read ONE Sparks novel. I picked The Wedding. Now, in general I too fancy myself a jaded cynic so Nicholas Sparks has never really had any appeal to me what-so-ever….he seems a little too over the top sappy. Romance as a genre in general has never been one that I am particularly into though I do like Para-Romance books…