Wednesday, July 27, 2011

New Booklist Review on Amazon

My review of An Englishwoman in France, Wendy Robertson's quirky paranormal fiction story featuring a heartbroken seeress that appeared in the July 2011 issue of Booklist print and online, is now up on Amazon and other online bookseller sites.

The review of Jackie Collins' newest, Goddess of Vengeance, also in the print and online July issue, sadly isn't on the bookstore sites yet. 

I'm still not sure how reviews go from Booklist to Amazon and other online booksellers.  All I know is that I'm not the one making the transfer.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Upcoming Reviews

My review stack is sky high these days.  Here's what's in it:

For Booklist:
  • A Place Called Home by Jo Goodman
  • The Great Betrayal by Pamela Oldfield
  • Riptide by Cherry Adair
  • Mr. Darcy's Bite by Mary Lydon Simonsen

For AAR:
  • To Have the Doctor's Baby by Teresa Southwick
  • Cheri on Top by Susan Donovan
  • Redeeming the Rogue by C. J. Chase

I've finished reading the Goodman and have started on the Oldfield which is a mystery and not a romance.  I'll write the Goodman review while I read the Oldfield and then turn in both reviews probably before August 1.

Friday, July 22, 2011

While I Was Away

While I was visiting my mother during the past week, two of my reviews ran on AAR:

Too Hot to Touch by Louisa Edwards was one of those books I thought I wouldn't like when I saw the cover.  A man naked to a while below his waste is holding a steaming fry pan of some indistinct food stuff.  Yeah, right, like he's pumped up with washboard abs standing over a kitchen stove swirling boiling hot food that could easily spill over onto his chest, arms, body!  Like I said, very off-putting for anyone who's ever been in a hot kitchen.  BUT Louisa Edwards' superior writing and the great story won me over.  I would never have picked this book up if I'd been surfing a bookstore, but I'm very happy I got to read it.  It's definitely a Desert Island Keeper, which Edwards is happy about too.

The Protector by Shelley Shepard Gray is the second book in her Families of Honor series about an Amish community.  While it was a good, gentle read, the book would be a disappointment for first-time readers of the series because it presupposes that everyone knows who each of the characters is and the relationships between the characters.  Also, the romance between the two main characters is blunted because the cast of characters and their individual problems introduced in the first book, The Caregiver, must be addressed.  In a slender book, that leaves little room for the main story.  I'm hoping the next book in the series, The Survivor, about one of my favorite characters, doesn't skimp on the details of her romance.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Good, but Short and Expensive Book Reviewed

My review of The Counterfeit Bride by Nancy J. Parra is up on the AAR site today.  I really, really wish that this book had been longer.  It was a great idea, well done. 

A single woman in the Old West invents a husband so that she can buy and run a general store.  But when a man claims to be her husband moves into town, she's hopping mad, but can't do anything about it.  Can she really let this stranger walk away with everything she's worked to own?

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Booklist Reviews Posted on Amazon

My review of An Englishwomen in France by Wendy Robertson and partial reviews of Death amid Gems by Meagan J. Meehan, Demons Prefer Blondes by Sidney Ayers, and Awaken the Highland Warrior by Anita Clenney are up on Amazon.  I have nothing to do with if or when the Booklist reviews will go onto Amazon, but it's nice that some of them do.

Review up on AAR

Today my review of The Pursuit of Jesse is on the AAR site.

For Booklist, I just finished reading Jo Goodman's Kissing Comfort, an excellent Western, and Tina Gabrielle's In the Barrister's Chambers, an historical whodunnit with romance elements.

In my review stack are four more books, one for Booklist and three for AAR.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Lori Foster Review on AAR

My review of Lori Foster's When You Dare is up on the AAR site today.  Oddly enough, even though I gave it a higher than average review grade, readers have trashed my review on the AAR discussion board.  I rebutted the trash talk, but I know it makes no difference.  These are die-hard fans who would rather take a poke in the eye than admit they are wrong.  Ah, the happy life as a reviewer!