4.5 stars Hester Wyatt was born as a slave, because her father, originally a free man, sold himself into slavery to be with her mother. When she was born, her mother severed part of her finger to make her more easy to identify, and Hester was found and taken in by her aunt Katherine, who taught her to read and write and raised her as her own. Now she lives in her dead aunt’s house, a valuable member of Michigan’s Underground Railroad. One night, she’s […]
You fed my heart to a dog?
In my last romance review I wrote about how romance novels can return you to the feeling of falling in love. I stand by that. But sometimes they can also return you to the feeling of realizing things aren’t going to work out the way you wanted. It isn’t the fault of the book, it’s what I as a reader bring to this particular table. I’m not going to go into my personal history (which doesn’t involve Paris, witch craft, or a happy ending), […]
You get a LOT of book for your money here
3.5 stars This is book 5 in the Outlander series, and really NOT the place to start reading these books. By this point, some of the principal characters have grown to middle age and have children and grandchildren. If you’re interested, say because the TV series is coming to Starz in August, start at the beginning with Outlander. Standard spoiler-warning spiel applies. If you’ve not read the first four books in the series, I cannot be held responsible for any spoilers you may or may not find in this […]
A historical romance with a blessedly non-annoying child as a supporting character
Tobias “Thorn” Daultry is the eldest of the Duke of Villiers‘ seven illegitimate children. He spent the first part of his life, before he was rescued and taken in by his powerful father, as a mudlark in the Thames, risking his miserable life on a daily basis to dive for trinkets in the dangerous river currents. As an adult, he has made his own fortune, completely independent of his father, and is looking to settle down. He’s decided that Letitia “Lala” Rainsford is the perfect bride […]
Another Historical Romance, but with an Adjacent Competitor [Cue Duelling Banjos]
Between the Devil and Ian Eversea by Julie Anne Long
Malin beat me to it… Tansy Danforth is isolated, orphaned, and looking to a family friend to help her both settle in a new country and, this is a historical romance after all, marry to gain access to her inheritance. Fortunately for Julie Anne Long fans, the friend is Alex Moncrieffe, Duke of Falconbridge who, along with Genevieve his duchess, is from Long’s classic romance pairing in What I Did for a Duke. Tansy is staying at the Eversea estate in Pennyroyal Green while she […]
A Regency romance heavy on the flirting
Miss Titania “Tansy” Danforth is all alone in the world. Her beloved brother was a soldier who died in the war of 1812, and her parents died in a carriage accident. Now she’s had to leave the home she knew in New York to travel back to England, where she hasn’t lived since she was a little girl. Her father’s will states that she’ll not have her fortune released until she marries a man approved by her new guardian, her father’s cousin, the fearsome Duke […]