Victoria Dahl is a great storyteller, and her current series (Jackson Girls’ Night Out) that takes place in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and follows a group of female friends who find love is some of her best stories yet. The latest novel in the series is Flirting with Disaster, about Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan and…
The Best Romance Novels I Read In 2014
I read a lot of romance novels, bouncing around between historicals and contemporaries, often reading sports-themed ones, getting stuck on a single author deep diving into their oeuvre, never really paying attention to when a book was written (though, of course, there are books/authors I seek out and pre-order and wait for without any ounce…
Elizabeth Brown’s ‘Determined’ Is No ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ (And That’s A Good Thing)
Elizabeth Brown’s new novella Determined is the first in a trilogy about the relationship between billionaire venture capitalist David Keith and whip smart Samantha Sharp, who works in an art gallery and is just breaking into the art dealing world. On her blog, Brown describes her work as “an Alpha Billionaire series” and, I won’t…
Sex, Death and Despair: A Review of “Princess Shanyin”
“It was all mixed up for him — sex and death and despair. It was all mixed up for me as well. It always had been.” This is as perfect a quote to encapsulate Princess Shanyin: The Complete Obsession Saga by Liliana Lee (aka Jeannie Lin) as exists. This historical erotic romance (which is, actually,…
Courtney Milan’s ‘The Suffragette Scandal’ Is Splendid
Gather ‘round, readers, as I explain why Courtney Milan’s The Suffragette Scandal is perfect. It takes place in 1877. The female protagonist is Frederica “Free” Marshall, the Owner and Editrix-in-Chief of the Women’s Free Press, a newspaper “By women—for women—about women.” She, her press, and her livelihood are being targeted by an angry and powerful…
Cora Carmack’s ‘All Broke Down’ Is Sizzling And Smart
In Cora Carmack’s latest novel, All Broke Down, Silas is a troubled football star and Dylan is an idealistic college activist. They meet in jail. He was there after fighting with a former friend and teammate in a bar and she after she handcuffed herself to a pole outside the homeless shelter she was protesting…