The Collection
Book Reviews
Explore our full library of honest reviews and literary recommendations.
A Scottish Love
The beginning of this book is so peculiar, it’s disconcerting. It’s 1859 in Inverness and Shona, the widowed Countess of Morton, so penniless she can barely feed herself, is interviewing…
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Blood and Fire
It’s safe to say I don’t want to live in Shannon McKenna’s fictional world. The bad guys are Machiavellian and ubiquitous, and way too much gruesomely horrifying stuff happens to…
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To Wed a Wild Lord
Ms. Jeffries’ latest in her Hellions of Halstead Hall series begins inauspiciously with an odd letter to readers from a character in the novel — the grandmother of the hellacious…
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The Other Guy’s Bride
As I read Ms. Brockway’s much anticipated The Other Guy’s Bride, I was reminded of one of my favorite featherweight films, the 1999 romantic comedy caper “The Mummy.” The novel,…
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A Beginner’s Guide to Rakes
In Ms. Enoch’s latest, The Beginner’s Guide to Rakes, the first paragraph reads: “Very few things in the world could make Oliver Warren, the Marquis of Haybury, flinch. He could…
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To Pleasure a Duke
When I was growing up, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” was regularly put forth as an argument against premarital sex. This awful phrase…
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Real Men Will
Ms. Dahl’s final book in her Donovan Brothers Brewery series tells the story of Eric, the eldest and least at ease of the Donovan siblings. He, like his brother and…
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A Lily among Thorns
I had hoped to love this book. I thought Ms. Lerner’s debut, In for a Penny, was marvelous. I did not love this book…but I did really like it. And…
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A Bride Unveiled
The first two chapters of Ms. Hunter’s A Bride Unveiled are terrific. Violet Knowlton is thirteen and growing up in the sleepy English town of Monk’s Huntley. She has three…
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Only His
The penultimate love scene at the end of Only His involves a giant metal vagina. Yep. True love is declared amidst a giant metal vagina. This didn’t work for me….
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A Scoundrel’s Surrender
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover and the couple on the cover of Ms. Petersen’s latest is downright skanky. The chick looks like a stripper at a…
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Slow Ride
Slow Ride, the latest in Ms. McCarthy’s Fast Track series, is a wreck of a book. The heroine is abrasive and has an unpleasant drinking pattern; the hero, an emotionally…
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