Make no mistake, this western historical romance was the worst book I had the displeasure to read in 2016, has a place on my online list of The Worst Romance Novels I Have Ever Read, and Vanessa Vale is on the Avoid at All Costs list I maintain in my noggin. Emma James is sold to a brothel by her evil step-brother. Given a choice between paying off the cost of her purchase by working as a prostitute or being auctioned off as a bride, […]
[wistful country tune plays]
Check another one off the NPR Summer of Love list. Texas Destiny is first in a trilogy about cowboy and rancher brothers living in an as-of-yet uncivilized West Texas. Preciously, they are named Dallas, Houston, and Austin. (“Our parents just named us after wherever they were living at the time,” Houston explains, which doesn’t alleviate my raised eyebrows considering Texas is huge, frequent travel in the Wild West is not something one does for fun in this era, and in the pre-birth control 19th century […]
In which I endorse a recent NPR romance recommendation
Listed as an honorable mention for Beverly Jenkins in NPR’s recent 100 recommended romances list, I gave Topaz a try as it covers two bases I haven’t much encountered: Westerns and African-American hero/ines. All things considered, I liked Topaz very much; though, admittedly, I found the prose to be lacking in sophistication (which is what knocks off the fifth star.) Still, Jenkins obviously has her finger on the pulse of what makes a romance successful. Katherine Love is a newspaper reporter in the late 19th […]