Just Turned in

To AAR this morning, I sent a DIK review of Sweet as Sin by Inez Kelley.  I enjoyed it even on second and third reading.  What an uplifting romance between two people who to all intents and purposes should be immune to love.  He's been the whipping boy of an insane preacher stepfather who tries to beat the bastard out of him and who thinks the way to heaven is paved with pain and suffering.  She is the daughter of a philandering father.  She looks for love, marriage, and happily ever after; he doesn't think they exist.  Only a really skilled writer could bring them together believably, and Kelley shows she's really skilled by doing so.

To Booklist, I sent a review of But Remember Their Names and recommended it for a starred review.  I can't remember when I've read two excellent books in a row!  What a treat.  Remember is a mystery, not
romance, about a new lawyer, promised to a New York City law firm that's paying her to wait for her start of employment date.  She has a fiance and two clients, and lives at home with her widowed stepdad.  What she learns about herself, her fiance, her dad, and her clients when one of the clients' father is murdered and the other client is killed in prison makes up the bulk of this excellent cozy by the pseudomystically named author, Hillary Bell Locke.

Also sent a review of Nearly a Lady by Alissa Johnson to Booklist on Monday, and suggested it for a starred review.  When their stepmother shorts their late father's ward of her yearly income, the new Marquess of Engsly deputises his brother to go to the Scottish estate where the ward is living and see how she is doing.  The romance between the battle-scarred former naval captain and the impoverished ward is well-written without being maudlin.

Also sent a review of another mystery, Death amid Gems, to Booklist.  This hybrid police procedural and cozy by Meagan J. Meehan is probably the tersest book I've read in years.  At 192 pages it barely has time to flush out the characters and comes off more like an episode of the old TV show Dragnet than a real mystery novel.

Upcoming: Her Scottish Groom for AAR and Scandal in Scotland for Booklist.  So here's to Scotland!