April 6th, 2009 — 3.5 Stars, Book Review, Cathy Maxwell, England, Highlander, Kidnapping, Scotland, Warrior
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Cathy Maxwell spins a charming little tale with delightful leads that are fun to read. I was disappointed in the bedroom scenes, however, when the story finally got there. I would have given this novel a four, but the dissatisfaction gleaned out of the lovemaking knocked it down a notch.
In the Highlander’s Bed a clan of Highlanders are in dire need of land, wealth, security, and they’re willing to fight for it. Or they were, but even Gordon’s most persuasive arguments lack the enthralling power to galvanize the people into action. They are becoming lazy, unorganized, and defeated. The pride that once held up their heads is gone and bickering has broken out amongst them.
Gordon needs the Sword of MacKenna to rouse them from their lackadaisical doldrums. However the Sword belongs to an ex-clansman who now enjoys a title from the peerage of England. But there is one thing Gordon is sure of about Tavis, he will protect what is his… even if it’s his sister by marriage. With plans to kidnap Constance Cameron from her remote boarding school, this is where our story starts.
Constance is more than Gordon thought he would get. Feisty and captivating, she fights like the devil and gives pride and purpose back to his people. Constance is more than he imagined and makes him yearn for peace. But the bounty on his head reminds Gordon, that he alone cannot escape the hangman’s noose and what kind of life is that to offer a woman?
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Buy: In the Highlander’s Bed
Originally posted 2008-12-07 06:44:13. Republished by Old Post Promoter
April 5th, 2009 — 4.5 Stars, Book Review, Children, England, Historical Romance, Kings, Princes, Sheiks, Chiefs, Lisa Kleypas, Queen or Princess, Russia, Scarred Hero, Time Travel
This love story is one of the most endearing I have ever read. Lisa Kleypas spins a tale worthy of mystical magical world of fairy tales. Based on Russian superstition, a prince who is like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast meets the woman of his dreams and learns to love. The bedroom scenes are exciting and steamy. Prince of Dreams is a novel not to be missed.
Despite his wealth, Prince Nikolas did not lead a charmed life. Taught early on the abuses man could inflict, Nikolas is determined to avoid emotions at all costs. Tortured and exiled from Russia, Nikolas makes a new home in England where during his recovery he meets Emma Stokehurst. At the tender age of thirteen, Emma is the girl Nikolas is certain he will wed. She is his destiny.
Nikolas remains on the fringes of Emma’s life as she grows and now at the age of twenty, he is more certain than ever that she is the one for him. Emma is tall and lithe, her body he imagines will match his own to perfection. Her red hair, independence, and forthright attitude remind him of the women back in Russia. Though she has a large dowry, Emma is left alone and dismissed by the male of the species. Everything about her is unfashionable in the eyes of polite society.
When he discovers that a man is wooing her under false pretenses, Nikolas strikes swift and sure, cutting her secret beau out of her life with a single conversation. Everything is working according to his plan as Nikolas seduces and marries the bewitching Emma. Now with her by his side as his wife, he is positive that his life is going to turn for the better. He was wrong.
Emma’s gentle nature and guileless giving is more threatening than the memories of those that tortured him in Russia. She can cause more havoc with a single kiss than Nikolas is comfortable with. His life has been dedicated to suppressing his emotions and the feelings Emma brings out are threatening to destroy all that he’s worked for, so Nikolas does the most hateful thing he can think of… he sleeps with another woman.
But despite the wedge he’s driven between them, the bewildering flashes of déjà vu keep happening to him. Snippets of conversation leave him in a cold sweat and a painting once revealed causes him to faint dead away. When Nikolas awakes he is angry and confused. Destiny has taken him back in time to mother Russia, where he lives life through the eyes of his ancestor Prince Nikolai. It is here in the midst of the past, Nikolas learns to become a better man… Emelia, beautiful Emelia, who is in every way his wife Emma, teaches Nikolas how to love. Disaster tears them apart and sends Nikolas to the future.
Realizing what a mess he’s made of his own life, Nikolas is determined to set things right. But Emma won’t have him. She doesn’t trust in the changes Nikolas has under gone. She won’t love him… won’t let herself love him. This new man who is in every way the man she had hoped he would be can’t last, because she knows his nature. As soon as she loved him he’d revert and mock her for her love. After all Nikolas is not a man that can change, he is a product of others hatred and fear, whose innate stubbornness rejects all kinds of affection. But he has changed and he will prove it. If it’s the last thing he does, he’ll make her believe in him; love him as she once did in the past.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Buy: Prince of Dreams
Originally posted 2008-12-07 19:34:48. Republished by Old Post Promoter
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March 28th, 2009 — 3.5 Stars, Book Review, Cindy Harris, England, Estranged, Headaches, Historical Romance, Scarred Hero
Wolf at the Door is one of those stories that starts with a pebble falling off the side of a mountain and ends in an avalanche. The pebble is the little white lie Millicent Hyde tells her stepsister about being engaged. The snow drift starts when Sherry asks Captain Alec Wolferton if it is true, that he is engaged to Millicent. The avalanche is when Alec agrees in warm rich tones, that yes, he is Millicent’s fiancé.
Poor Millicent Hyde is in a pickle now. Always impulsive, she has been known to make one bad decision after the next – from running off with a poof who leaves her at the altar to telling the truth and creating scandal. Disowned by her father at her stepmother’s whim, it’s all she can do to watch the perfect Miss Sherry flutter her lashes and glide across the ballroom. Her own mouth gets her in trouble again and the noble Captain Alec Wolferton was just trying to help. Now his reputation is tangled with hers and Millicent is terrified the truth will come out and she’ll never reconcile with her father because of it.
For his part, Captain Alec Wolferton is quite pleased with this fake engagement. He’s on a mission for the London War Office to expose Sherry Hyde’s fiancé a corrupt and evil man. Colin Rafferty is also the man responsible for wounding Alec during the Crimean War leaving him scarred for life and doomed to endure forever constant throbbing headaches. It’s a personal vendetta for Alec to ruin Colin Rafferty as he had been ruined and not even the pretty, delectable Miss Millicent Hyde will get in his way.
The bedroom scenes are very steamy and enjoyable.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Originally posted 2008-11-28 11:08:05. Republished by Old Post Promoter
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March 17th, 2009 — 5 Stars, Artist, Book Review, England, Historical Romance, Jacquie D'Alessandro, Poor Eyesight, Spectacles
You know how they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, well I do. I picked up Jacquie D’Alessandro’s Sleepless at Midnight last fall because of the cover. It was sensual while not being risqué. I bought it when I read that the heroine snuck into his room to spy on him bathing. I was not disappointed. What followed was some of the best dialog I had ever read in a romance novel with a touching story besides. In addition to the witty repartee the bedroom scenes should be noted. They are exceptional: steamy, sticky, and sexy.
Miss Sarah Moorehouse is plain, bespectacled, and unfashionably tall with a naughty side a mile long. She forms secret clubs, reads a novel that would raise eyebrows, sneaks into men’s private rooms, and draws pictures of naked men in her sketchbook. Matthew Langston finds her fascinating.
However, Matthew can’t afford to find her so. He has to fulfill two death bed promises to his father. The first is restoring the estate and the second is getting married within a year of the old man’s passing. His father’s last few words were about a windfall hidden on the estate. If he could find it before time was up he could marry the woman of his dreams and not the one of the pretty heiresses staying at his house party.
Rating: 5 Stars
Happy Readings!
Originally posted 2008-11-17 15:25:15. Republished by Old Post Promoter
January 8th, 2009 — About, Erotica, News
I was reading Not Everything Erotic is Romantic over at All About Romance’s Blog. It touched a bit on what I was thinking when I was writing The Romance Novel - Women’s Porn? However Lynn said something I forgot to touch on in my original post, which I thought I would do now using an illustration from her musings. She said:
Lynn: …it seems to be an extension of what I’ve seen some erotic romance publishers do in recent years. They throw books our way and say “You’ll love it! It’s a romance. We swear!” When readers respond with indifference to, say, books without a romance, publishers often wonder what’s up with that. Why aren’t we buying those books? After all, they have plenty of sex - and isn’t the sex what romance readers are really looking for?
Wrong! The difference between a romance novel and porn is the focus on the emotions–the happily ever after. That’s the good stuff. Right there is why women, or at least I, buy and buy into romance. The emotions make the sex worthwhile in a book. Sex between leads must serve a purpose. My comment in no way is meant to dismiss erotica. I find some erotica to be quite singularly excellent and others like Anne Rice’s 
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy to be complete crap. It’s as Carolyn Jewel says from the post Defined: Emotion and Passion, pt 1:
Carolyn Jewel: There must be something at risk, something changed between them [the leads] afterward. If your characters aren’t risking anything emotionally through their intimacy, then it’s just boring. Every bedroom scene has to change the relationship between the characters. This can include making things seem even worse, by the way. Intimacy does not always equal happy ever after, especially early on in a relationship. It’s not only about who’s touching who where. The best bedroom scenes never, ever lose focus on the emotion, even when one of the characters thinks there isn’t any.
In many cases the difference between an okay romance and a great romance is the sexual tension. Without it the writing is lacking. Intimacy is created with sex; it is where you’re vulnerable, where you learn about your partner, and most importantly learn a bit about yourself. In an author interview with erotica writer, Jamaica Layne I asked her to define a weakness in romance and she illustrated a weakness from tame romance, which I agreed with wholeheartedly. She said:
Jamaica: —–I think a major weakness of most “sweet” romance novels is the fact they leave the sex out. One reason I’m so drawn to writing erotica is because it leaves the sex in without asking the reader to fill in their own details. Don’t get me wrong—-I still like a good non-erotic romance novel—-but there still needs to be at least some sex and/or sensuality in order for it to appeal to me. Even Jane Austen understood the importance of sex in romance—–all of her heroines are quite sensual, even though her books make no direct mention of sex.
I could watch and read Pride and Prejudice forever. The conclusion to draw from this is that sex in romance must be tied in with emotion, attraction, and create a dynamic pull between the characters and the reader. We must feel the same drive the characters do. When sex is written and it serves no purpose to the reader or the characters, it’s like trying to pull teeth, excruciating, or kissing a cold fish, plainly displeasing and alienating. Nothing can pull a reader out of a story quicker than a poorly written sex scene that’s clumsy or unnecessary. Authors can include sex or not but never ever should they write a romance without these three elements; because the tension, attraction and emotional vulnerability are all essential to creating a romance that readers want to read and reread time and again.
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