Sheryl Woods' "Driftwood Cottage"

Grade: C-

passion rating: subtle

Reading this book was a lot like spending an afternoon with my very sweet, very voluble cousin who, every time I see her, launches into protracted, tedious stories about people I’ve never met and, based on her anecdotes, have no interest in meeting. While she chatters on, I think - and I do always feel badly about this - “blah, blah, bored now, blah, blah, blah.”

Two chapters into this book, I wondered if my cousin had taken up penning humdrum romances, but no, this book is by Sherryl Woods, an author with over a hundred books to her name.Driftwood Cottage is the fifth book in Ms. Woods’s Chesapeake Shores series featuring the O’Brien family. Much of the fanciful - and boy are they fanciful - O'Brien family lives in the Maryland seaboard town of Chesapeake Shores. The O'Briens are a touching (read: fake and folksy), multi-generational (there's a cookie baking, sappy saying dispensing Grandmother and several cute as a button tykes), loving (meddlesome and gossipy) family replete with contented couples in which the men all seem, well, whipped. One son, however, Connor O'Brien, our hero - and I use that term very loosely — refuses to walk the O'Brien walk. He's so hell-bent on not being part of a happy, married couple he has refused, for years, to marry the woman he loves, Heather Donovan.


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Candace Camp's "An Affair without End"

Grade: B

passion rating: warm

An Affair without End is the third and final book in Candace Camp’s Windmere series but it works just fine as a stand-alone read. In fact, the book itself works just fine: It’s well written, captivating, has winning leads and engaging secondary characters, and presents a pleasant dash of intrigue.


The primary lovers in this book are older and more self-aware than many in historical romance. Both Vivian Carlyle and Oliver, Lord Stewksbury, are adults - who act as adults. Their relationship unfurls untroubled by big misunderstandings or too stupid to believe choices. The obstacle they face is a simple one — they are very different people who, despite being drawn to one another, don’t believe they would suit as husband and wife.


Vivian, at 28, has decided marriage isn’t for her. She’s lovely, wealthy, easily bored, and unusually independent. She defines and enjoys her own pursuits. She charms men with ease and enjoys the social life of the ton. But the only man she’s desired — carnally-- is Oliver, whom she has known all her life. Oliver, several years older than Vivian, is seen by most as a conservative, even stuffy man. He’s a got a great deal of responsibility all of which he takes quite seriously. He’s unmarried, but knows, at some point, he will need an heir and thus he plans to marry a conventional bride to bear said heir. He’s always thought Vivian lovely, but sees her independent streak as reckless and her interests as flighty.


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Margaret Malloy's "The Guardian"

Grade: B

passion rating: hot

As I read this book, I wondered two things. First, what was the average age of marriage for Scots women in the early 16th century? Second, why do all the names of the Scottish Highland clans begin with Mac?
The answer to the first was hard to find. Women did marry at a much earlier age than men - males needed to establish themselves economically before they could wed. Girls could marry as young as 12, but rarely did so. Several studies indicate that the average age for a first marriage for early Renaissance women was close to 18. The answer to the second question took just a moment to find. The prefix "Mac" means "son of" in Gaelic. Until the 1500’s, Gaelic-speaking Scots had just one name and were identified by their father. So, in Margaret Mallory’s satisfying Highlander romance The Guardian, the hero is called Ian, son of Payton, and he is a member of the clan MacDonald who live on the Isle of Skye.


In 1508, Ian is forced to marry his thirteen year old friend Sileas MacKinnon. This unwanted union occurs because, as Ian rescues Sileas from her malevolent stepfather (the toad is about to proffer Sileas to a child rapist), he has no choice but to spend the night with her and thus compromises her. (I had a hard time with the idea of Sileas, a skinny child with too big teeth, being old enough to be compromised. Hence my wonderings about the age of marriage.) Ian is 18 and in love with a beauty he’s met at court in Stirling - the home of the then Queen: The French Mary de Guise, bride of King James V, and an important part of the Auld Alliance of Scotland and France. Ian is unequivocally unhappy with his forced matrimony and, as soon as the ceremony is done, he leaves the Isle of Skye, accompanied by his three boon companions (Connor, Alex, and Duncan, each of whom will have a book in this series) and heads to France to battle the English. Five years later, Ian and his three comrades return — they come home when they hear of the Scottish defeat at Flodden (one of the worst in Scottish history) where their chieftain and his brother were killed. Connor is now the true head of the MacDonald clan, but his iniquitous uncle Hugh Dubh, “Black Hugh,” has seized control of the clan. The four returned Highlanders endeavor to ensure that Connor becomes chieftain, something Hugh fiercely fights.


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Mary Wine's "Improper Seduction"

Grade: C-

passion rating: hot

In this historical romance, the story, for much of the book, centers on this burning question: When will our heroine, Bridget Newbury, give up her maidenhead to the hero, Lord Curan Ramsden? Two thirds of the way through the book, the two finally do the deed and, much to my surprise, despite the fact that Bridget is a well-bred young lady in the 16th century, she begins their tryst with a sexual act one rarely associates with virgins. I suppose I shouldn’t have been taken aback when, a few pages later, Curan, apparently uninterested in the bed in the room, deflowers his young bride on a nearby table. The scene is improbable. And while I’m all for passion in my romances, a book that’s about nothing but passion, and implausibly rendered passion at that, isn’t appealing to me.


As the book begins, Bridget’s mother, Lady Connolly, tells Bridget her father has arranged a marriage for her. Bridget is surprised to hear this because, three years ago, she was betrothed to a fine-looking border lord, Sir Curan Ramsden. When Bridget points out she’s already promised to another, her mother tells her that “things change quickly these days” and that for political reasons, her father - he lives in London serving the court of King Henry VIII - wishes her to wed Lord Oswald, an elderly man who has already divorced one young wife for not giving him an heir. Her mother tells her, “We must do all in our power to insure your union is a solid one,” and tells Bridget she has someone for Bridget to meet.


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Emma Wildes' "One Whisper Away"

Grade: C

passion rating: warm

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of a good romance must be in want of a credible tale. Ms. Wildes, who references Jane Austen in her latest Regency romance, One Whisper Away, does not have one.

The story begins with a glass of spilled champagne and an unlikely whisper. Jonathan Bourne, the part-Iroquois Earl of Augustine, has recently come to England to take up his earldom and to marry off his three half-sisters. As the novel begins, he is somewhat inexplicably (he hates this sort of thing) at a ball. Also at the soirée is the stunning Lady Cecily Francis. A randomly gesticulating oaf spills a glass of bubbly on Cecily’s bosom. Jonathan wipes her breasts dry with his handkerchief, whispers to her that he’d rather lick it off, and then saunters away. None of this makes much sense. As written by Ms. Wildes, Jonathan is so ethical he lectures the bored ton matrons who sneak into his bed about the sanctity of marriage. He is an unlikely candidate for the aggressive overture Ms. Wildes saddles him with.

Jonathan is an amalgam of archetypes: Soulful Native American, sexy seducer, stricken swain. He serves as a medium for the clear moral of this novel: It is more satisfying and morally superior not to follow the common edicts of the polite society. In One Whisper Away, Jonathan - and indeed every main character - behaves in a way that, were they to be caught and subject to social scrutiny, would result in them being banned from not just Almack’s Assembly Rooms but all aristocratic gatherings. I would have been less bothered by this rash display of behavior if the story gave these people a context that explained their actions. But the plot and setting of this novel is the over-explored Regency realm romance readers know well. As I read this book, I wondered why Ms. Wildes set it in the time period she did. Her characters behaved in decidedly modern ways and, placed as they are in early 1800’s England, their actions are implausible.


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Kathleen O'Reilly's "Just Surrender"

Grade: B

passion rating: warm

There’s a telling exchange between Edie Higgins and Tyler Hart — the heroine and hero of Ms. O’Reilly’s latest Harlequin Blaze novel Just Surrender — when the two first meet. Edie, moonlighting for a night as a New York cabbie, picks up Tyler from JFK and takes him the very long way into the city. The two are discussing Edie’s definition of love. She says, “The world has to tilt and shift — and I have to forget how to breathe.” Tyler, a cardiothoracic surgeon, counters, “That’s not love, that’s stress cardiomyopathy.” This exchange illuminates the two. Edie is all about the heart and Tyler, despite his overly obvious last name, is all about the brain. Interestingly, of the two, Tyler is the more likeable.

Edie annoyed me. The night she meets Tyler, she’s initially pretty rotten to him in an “I know what’s best for you” sort of way. He’s exhausted, having just flown in from Houston. He’s come to New York to compete for a fellowship and he all he wants is to go to his hotel and get some sleep. Edie decides to take him on an unasked tour of the five boroughs — the rate from JFK to anywhere in the city is preset — during which she harangues him to bare his soul. Tyler, bleary and frazzled, begins to find her seductive and at the end of the night — which goes on forever — they have sex at his exceedingly sleazy hotel. Afterwards, Edie agrees to see him again — not for more sex, but to teach him how to navigate relationships.


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Madeline Hunter's "Dangerous in Diamonds"

Grade: A-

passion rating: hot

This fourth and last of Madeline Hunter’s Rarest Blooms series, tells the tale of Tristan, the Duke of Castleford, and Daphne Joyes, the proprietor of The Rarest Blooms, an unusual nursery. Theirs is a grand romance. Tristan is a splendid character — a smart as hell duke who spends all his days drinking and whoring — all days, that is, but Tuesdays. Tristan’s sober, sex-free Tuesdays are the days he applies his intelligence and energy to whatever interests him: Managing his investments, advising the Prime Minister, meddling in the lives of his friends (something he did to great success in other Rarest Blooms books), or masterfully seducing the guarded and aloof Mrs.Joyes.

Tristan’s closest cohorts are married to Daphne’s closest friends, yet the two have never actually met. (Tristan, once he sees how alluring she is, suspects his friends and their wives deliberately kept her out of his sight.) Their paths finally cross when Tristan inherits the land and the buildings that house The Rarest Blooms. Straight away, Tristan wants her in his bed and he is a master at getting what he wants. Daphne has heard countless scandalous stories about Tristan, and when he comes to introduce himself as her new landlord, she knows she’s in trouble. He makes it clear to her as they begin to negotiate the future of The Rarest Blooms, he will seduce her, pleasure her, and see her wearing nothing but diamonds. He is, of course, right.


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Heather Grothaus's "Never Kiss a Stranger"

Grade: C-

passion rating: warm

“The monkey ruined the feast."

When I read the unusual first line of Heather Grothaus’ latest medieval romance, Never Kiss a Stranger, I was engaged. I had, as the song goes, high hopes which, sadly, were dashed by the rest of the tale. This book has an insufferable teenage heroine, an overly virtuous hero, and a story line that sputters out long before its welcome conclusion. The hero and heroine have so little chemistry that it actually makes a disheartening sort of sense that they scarcely touch each other. The two don’t banter or flirt— they chatter and bicker in ways unfunny and irritating. Even the monkey, improbably named Layla and perhaps the most faceted character in the tale, is, in due course, unappealing.

The monkey and its eventual owner, our trying heroine Lady Alys Foxe, begin their tale at the Foxe family home, the imposing — and coveted by King Edward — Fallstowe. Fallstowe houses the three Foxe sisters: The frosty eldest Sybilla, the pious and unexciting Cecily, and the spoiled, self-centered Alys. The three are orphans and Sybilla must scheme daily — she’s busy nightly with a series of one-night stands — to hold onto the family stronghold. Alys and Sybilla routinely clash and, on the night we meet the monkey, Alys shames the family by insulting the monkey’s owner, a vile woman named Lady Bloodshire. Sybilla, in an act of bitchy sisterly revenge, pledges Alys in marriage to Lady Bloodshire’s effeminate son. Alys, aghast, runs away to Foxe Ring, a place with mystical marriage-related powers. It’s said that when a man and a woman meet in the ancient ring of stones, under a full moon, the two are instantaneously wed.


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Pamela Clare's "Breaking Point"

Grade: B+

passion rating: hot

Pamela Clare's latest I Team book is a fine addition to an exciting series. Ms. Clare’s I-Team is a group of investigative journalists who work for the fictional Denver Independent. The women of the team, all reporters, have in previous books taken on pernicious social evils, while falling in love (and lust) with smart, sexy heroes. Ms. Clare, a journalist herself, knows how to write a gripping story and Breaking Point is her most compelling romantic suspense novel thus far.

She dedicates her tale to "the memory of the hundreds of murdered and missing women of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.... (who) were brutalized and discarded." Ms. Clare's passion for justice for Las Muertas de Juarez - it's estimated that as few as 400 and as many as 5000 women have disappeared from that border town in the past two decades - makes this book not only an absorbing read but a stirring call for justice for the women and the brave reporters who have been killed while working in Mexico. That nation, as Ms. Clare points out, is now the most dangerous place in the world - outside of an outright war zone - to be a journalist.


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Anna Campbell's "Midnight's Wild Passion"

Grade: D

passion rating: hot

As a rule, rakes set on ruin for the purpose of revenge do little for me. Not only do I pity them for never having learned that living well is the best revenge, I am irked that the ruin sought is almost always at the expense of a young virginal girl. Can’t these rich, handsome, brilliant, bad anti-heroes find someone of their own relative perfection to pick on?

The swarthy, golden-haired rake of Ms. Campbell’s latest historical romance Midnight’s Wild Passion is Nicholas Challoner, Marquess of Ranelaw. Nicholas has such a bad reputation that his mere appearance at debutantes’ ball momentarily strikes everyone there into silent shock. He’s there to dance with the innocent young Cassandra Demarest whom he plans to stalk, seduce, and abandon. Nicholas’s had it in for her father, Godfrey Demarest, ever since the latter despoiled Nicholas’s half-sister twenty years ago. Nicholas plans to return the favor. He knows he’ll “roast in hell for what he plotted. Cassandra Demarest was an innocent who didn’t deserve the fate he intended.” But he doesn’t care. He’s a rotter — in fact, he’s such a churl, he decides to seduce and destroy Cassandra and her fetching chaperone Antonia Smith. The way he sees it, “he’d have her (Antonia) in his bed. She’d be his reward for ruining the poppet.” The guy’s a louse.


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I've been reading, reading, reading

I've been reading a lot this weekend and have been exploring some romances I am not reviewing for AAR. It's interesting to me how varied the world of romance novels is. I've enjoyed sampling different genres. I thought I'd share the books I've read and the grades I'd give them.

Kristan Higgins' My One and Only 

grade:B+, passion rating: subtle

Connie Brockway's All Through the Night

grade: B-, passion rating: warm

Julie James' A Lot Like Love

grade: B-, passion rating: warm

Delilah Marvelle's A Perfect Scandal

grade: C, passion rating: hot

Jill Shalvis' The Sweetest Thing

grade: A, passion rating: hot