“Toward the Sunrise” is a novella that I wished was a novel as then it would have had the space to show everything that was told. Ashton and Julia felt like a couple that would work due to a previous correspondence and shared dreams to travel. These letters were one of the many aspects of the story that was mentioned but not truly shown, as was the incident that prompted Julia’s being expelled. When Camden … Continue reading Toward the Sunrise by Elizabeth Camden →
Before reading this, I had only heard good things about this novella. Scratch that – amazing things. So I was prepared to be either blown away or severely disappointed. Thankfully, it was the former. This book induces Good Book Noise™ something fierce. It is both deeply harrowing and one of the sweetest books I have read in a long time – and both those aspects are melded seamlessly throughout the story. The story is set … Continue reading Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole →
THIS BOOK WAS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS. (I was promised ridiculous and then I got it.) The premise is this: Berni, a New York socialite, dies of a heart attack, and ends up in Purgatory. She hasn’t led a bad life compared to some, but she doesn’t have enough credit to make it to heaven without performing some good deeds. She’s assigned Nellie Grayson, a good, kind doormat of a heroine, who’s got a terrible family, food … Continue reading Wishes by Jude Deveraux →
Continuing with the year of “everything goes back to Hamilton,” Alyssa tweeted that this novella took place around the point of “Guns and Ships.” It does not feature America’s Favorite Fighting Frenchman (LAFAYETTE), but it does touch on a facet of the Revolutionary War that isn’t often mentioned: Black soldiers and how the British used the promise (sometimes illusion) of freedom to get Black people to…well, not so much fight, but to basically be slave … Continue reading Be Not Afraid by Alyssa Cole →
For me, Kissing the Captain was bad. It was mind-numbingly, throw-against-a-wall bad. While many historical romances are gloriously cheesy and I adore them, this romance was not ‘so bad it’s good’ – it was just bad. The dialogue was clunky and false, no one behaved in an even remotely plausible manner, the hero was a jackass, the heroine vacillated between being a kickass woman and a doormat, and the villain was cartoonishly one-dimensional and relentlessly fat-shamed. … Continue reading Kissing the Captain by Kianna Alexander →
We have been looking forward to this book since Miss Beverly talked about it on the podcast back in APRIL, and now it’s here and we have it and things are good. First and foremost, this is a book about a period in history not talked about much in Romancelandia, and the whole world Jenkins gives us is drawn in such clear, confident lines. The hero is a hero I’ve never seen before, and the … Continue reading Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins →
One of the things that is real and that has been unearthed by the Hamilton fans is this 1861 pornographic biography of Aaron Burr, in which the young Aaron Burr fucks his way from New Jersey to Massachusetts and back in the early days of the American Revolution. We don’t know who wrote it, we don’t know why, and we really don’t know why this anonymous someone decided that what the world needed in 1861 … Continue reading The Amorous Intrigues and Adventures of Aaron Burr by Anonymous →
This was such a sweet little movie, y’all. It’s a romance on paper, but it’s really a meditation on immigration, homesickness, and what does “home” mean. Eilis Lacey is a young woman in 1950s Ireland, with no job and no real prospects. Her sister asks an Irish priest in New York to sponsor her immigration to America. She leaves her sister and mother behind, and moves into a boarding house, finds a job in a … Continue reading Movie Review: Brooklyn →
I love stories set in the 1920’s, and I loved author Alaya Johnson’s most recent book (Love is the Drug). So I had high hopes for Moonshine, which is a paranormal with romantic elements about a social worker in New York in the 1920s. As it turned out the book was…OK. It was entertaining but it was easy to put down. It’s the first book in a series, so the romance element ends in a … Continue reading Moonshine by Alaya Johnson →
I read A Lady’s Guide to Skirting Scandal at the dentist while waiting for two fillings. I’m horribly phobic about the dentist so when I say that this story was comforting, it’s high praise indeed. It’s too rushed to go down in literary history as the best story ever, but if you need a quick comfort read you can’t possibly do better than this tale of a social climber who falls madly and inconveniently in … Continue reading Lady’s Guide to Skirting Scandal by Kelly Bowen →
The book Calico Palace is a romance/historical novel/adventure story that brings the California Gold Rush to vivid life with wonderful characters, a robust sense of humor, some harrowing tragedy (the Gold Rush was not a place for wimps), and a strong message of the importance of building your own family, being emotionally hardy, and seizing the life you want in a forthright way. It’s a powerfully feminist book and while some of the romance comes … Continue reading Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow →
