Category / Historical

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Cheyenne Amber by Catherine Anderson

Format: E-bookcheyenneamber
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: HarperTorch
Hero: Deke Sheridan
Heroine: Laura Cheney
Date of Publication: March, 1994
Started On: February 26, 2010
Finished On: February 28, 2010

This title seems to be one that is pretty popular with Catherine Anderson’s fans. Maybe because I started reading the book with a lot of high expectations based on the raving reviews this book has received, I found myself sort of perplexed as to why readers found this title to be such a great romance. Believe me the book was interesting enough, but it just doesn’t seem that remarkable a story to me though the story had its good moments.

Laura Cheney comes from gentle breeding and a rich family. Tristan, then her husband married her thinking he could get his grubby hands on Laura’s money but her father, who had always been cold towards Laura ever since Laura’s mom died during childbirth cut all ties from her after she wed Tristan. Then everything went downhill for Laura, where Tristan turned abusive physically and emotionally towards her just to get her money’s worth from her body and soul. He moves her from all that’s familiar to her to Colorado and sets her up in the rough countryside where stories of Indians butchering and torturing the whites seem to echo throughout the mountains that surround her home.

Laura is left to her own vices and she gives birth to her son Jonathan all alone. Meanwhile Tristan goes for mustang rounding with a couple of rough Mexicans who bring a whole new meaning to the word cruel. Tristan who always had a thing for gambling, gambles away and offers his wife as the prize when he loses to Gonzales the head of the rough Mexican crowd. Gonzales kills Tristan without thinking twice about it to claim Laura and sell her across the border for pretty a penny, after all his gang members have had their fill of the pretty lady.

However a turn of events end Gonzales and his gang with Jonathan to lure the pretty white haired Laura into their clutches. Frantic and fatigued beyond anything Laura tries to find someone who would help her track down those who snatched away her baby and the sheriff points her towards Deke Sheridan. Though he is white in origins, he was brought up by Cheyennes and is named Flint Eyes. Rough around the edges with an air of danger always around him, Deke is the best tracker around. Though Deke at first refuses to help Laura, something about her reaches into the cold realms of his heart and before he knows it he is saddled with a woman whose determination to find her baby is unlike anything Deke has ever encountered before.

Suspicious by nature about white people in general, whilst Laura is more than suspicious about anyone who has an Indian heritage, these two make a striking team when they start off on the rough and unforgiving barren land towards tracking those who kidnapped Jonathan. As much as Laura would like to wash her hands off of Deke, she knows that he is her only hope and thus has no choice but to trust him with her life.

Laura’s stubbornness in not admitting that she is sick after her childbirth nearly kills Deke and Laura to be saved in the nick of time by Deke’s Cheyenne tribe. There within the Indians, Laura comes to learn the real man behind the rough facade that Deke puts up to the rest of the world and comes to treasure the way of life of the Indians about whom Laura had always heard the worst things possible.

What irked me the most in this novel was the fact that Deke who deserved her utmost trust when he did nothing to deserve otherwise had to work the hardest to gain it. Whilst at the beginning of the novel, Laura was thinking of trying to make her marriage to the undeserving Tristan work, Laura doesn’t want to trust Deke, who nurses her back to health when she was on the brink of death after childbirth. I just found the notion kind of difficult to swallow. If someone such as Deke treated me the way Deke treats Laura I wouldn’t have hesitated to embrace him with all I have got. Maybe that’s just me. But I guess this whole novel didn’t rate so highly with me because of that.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Annie’s Song by Catherine Anderson

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: Avon
Hero: Alex Montgomery
Heroine: Annie Trimble
Date of Publication: January 1, 1996
Started On: February 25, 2010
Finished On: February 26, 2010

Goodness me! This is one of the sweetest and most adorable romances that one could ever read. The story of Alex and Annie is one that is bound to stay with the reader for a long period of time as one of the best and most touching romances a reader could come across. This is a re-read for me and I assure you that after sometime I would be picking up this novel once again just to feel those tugs at my heart and get the warm feeling deep in my tummy that you are guaranteed to get after reading this beautiful story.

Annie lives in her own lonely world labeled as a crazy person after she had a fever when she was young. Though no one understands her, Annie roams freely across the forests that surround her home. During one of her excursions and at the age of around 18, Douglas Montgomery, Alex’s step brother who has a mean streak in his nature a mile wide comes across Annie and brutally rapes her just because he thinks that he could get away with it. Alex had always let Douglas get away with all sorts of behavior but his latest crime gives Alex a  bad taste in his mouth and so cuts off all ties with Douglas and asks him to move out of their home.

Alex approaches the Trimbles (Annie’s parents) and offers to make matters right. When Annie’s parents discover that she is pregnant and four months along, Alex offers to marry her till the babe is born and divorce her so that no scandal would touch the Trimble family since Annie’s father had political aspirations that wouldn’t survive a scandal of Annie becoming pregnant since people ridiculed Annie as it is.

Alex installs Annie at his home never thinking for a minute that Annie would have the power to bring him down to his knees. Annie’s odd behavior suddenly starts to make sense to Alex when he realizes that rather than being crazy as she is labeled to be, Annie had lost her hearing due to the ravaging fever she experienced when she was young.

What proceeds is so heartwarming and so very beautiful that any reader with even an iota of romance in his or her heart would be totally captivated by the lengths that Alex goes through to give Annie everything he could possibly give her within his power.

The love between these two grows so beautifully throughout the novel that you can’t help but fall in love with these two characters that Ms. Anderson has created so well.

Very highly recommended.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell by Samantha James

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: McBride Family, Book 1
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Hero: Simon Blackwell
Heroine:  Annabel McBride
Date of Publication: April 1, 2007
Started On: February 22, 2010
Finished On: February 23, 2010

This has got to be one of the best historical romances that I have ever had the pleasure to read. I read this book sometime back and this title has always remained somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind as a book that should be re-read from time to time. So after the previous historical romance I read and reviewed, I had this itch to find this book once again and give it a a go. And this story enthralled me the second time round as well, maybe more than the first time round.

Simon Blackwell is the epitome of tortured heroes. Though he is not cynical and deliberately cruel as certain heroes tend to be, Simon is a man who hides his passionate nature behind a wall of anguish that one can never even begin to describe or comprehend. Losing his wife and two kids five years back in a tragic accident, Simon has blamed himself for their deaths and berated at the fates for snatching away the most important people in his life.

By chance on one of his rare trips to London, he meets Annie. Annie dislikes Simon for the rudeness that he showed her on their first meeting but finds herself inexplicably drawn to this enigmatic man whom all members of her family seem to like on their first encounter. The smoldering attraction between these two finally takes a turn when during their first kiss, Annie’s family discovers them with the tip off from an old nemesis of Annie’s. Forced to wed never knowing about Simon’s painful past, Annie has her work cut out for her in thawing the ice cold lock around Simon’s heart.

Simon fights the immense attraction and the intense feelings that Annie arouses in him every step of the way. Being as stubborn as Simon, Annie at last manages to crumble his defenses and make Simon embrace the smoldering hot passion that flares between the two. I have to tell you, this book has got one of the hottest and greatest love scenes ever!

Finally at the end, love triumphs over tragedy and heartache and Simon finds the courage in him to let go, to love and be loved in return. Lovely story highly recommended for historical romance lovers. Will surely end up re-reading this book in the future. Yes, it is THAT good!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard | Kobo

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: My Darling Caroline by Adele Ashworth

Format: E-bookmydarlingcaroline
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Hero: Earl of Weymerth Brent Ravenscroft
Heroine:  Caroline Grayson
Date of Publication: October 1, 1998
Started On: February 21, 2010
Finished On: February 22, 2010

It’s been quite sometime since I enjoyed a historical romance as this one. Adele Ashworth is definitely one author I would keep an eye on from now onwards. This romance is so heartwarming that I just can’t help but smile deep within after finishing the story of Brent and Caroline.

Brent returns from serving for England as a secret service agent and fighting the war against Napoloean Bonaparte to find his cousin to whom he had handed over his estate and finances whilst he was gone had sold his most priced possessions. A man who has a way with breeding horses, Brent finds that its Caroline’s father who had purchased his most priced collection of horses.

Willing to strike a bargain to buy them back into his possession, Brent finds Caroline’s father wants to strike a deal to marry off his 3rd daughter Caroline, whom society has already labeled  to be a spinster with no good prospective offers for her hand in sight, which is fine with Caroline since her life and passion is devoted to being a botanist and breeding different varieties of roses.

Caroline an extra ordinarily gifted woman, wants nothing to do with men but to be left alone to pursue her dreams and her one passion in life. Wanting to go off to America to pursue her study of Botany, but never finding the right way to approach her father regarding the matter, Caroline finds in her marriage a way out, an annulment from a husband who made his intentions of not wanting a wife in the first place quite clear.

However, both Brent and Caroline never factored into their little plans that they would both become irresistibly drawn to one another and eventually fall in love with such spellbinding sweetness that as the reader I couldn’t help but be enchanted.

Brent is the type of hero that you come across rarely. With a bitter childhood, and a lonely past, he is handsome and utterly drool worthy in his pursuits in seducing his rather reluctant wife to stay by his side.

An old enemy from Brent’s past who wants to ruin everything that means something to him, a deaf child Brent fathered and the tidbits from both Brent and Caroline’s pasts are intrinsically woven together together to create a tale that you can’t really put down once you have started. Wonderful love story!

Highly recommended!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Sunset Embrace by Sandra Brown

Format: Paperbacksunsetemrbace
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: American Western
Series: Coleman Family Saga, Book 1
Publisher: Warner Books
Hero: Ross Coleman
Heroine: Lydia Bryant
Date of Publication: June 1, 1990
Started On: December 17, 2009
Finished On: December 18, 2009
Re-read on: May 2011

This romance is of the American West time period and is romance at its best. With great characters and an intense plot to keep things going, I loved every bit of this delectable novel by Sandra Brown. I feel almost sorry since she has shifted her focus on writing more stories of thriller/romance genre rather than focusing on romance alone after reading this book.

Lydia Langston is found  at the brink of death after giving birth to a dead infant boy, borne out of forced relations with her stepbrother. The family of the boys who find her take her in and nurse her back to health. Amidst the travelers who are on their way to Texas to start their lives anew are Ross Coleman and his wife Victoria. Victoria dies during childbirth rendering Ross a widow with his son Lee who refuses the many attempts to be fed. Ma Langston, the woman who nurses Lydia back to health, convinces Ross to let Lydia wet nurse his son. From the moment Ross lays his eyes on Lydia passion flares between the two which Ross tamps down viciously, with no intention of ever succumbing to a woman whom he thinks of as a loose woman.

Circumstances pit these two together, Lydia who vows that she would never bow down to any man after the years of constant sexual abuse she faced from her stepbrother whom she thinks she murdered in her last attempt to escape, and Ross who vows that no woman would ever take the place of Victoria who bestowed upon him the favor of bringing him into the circle of the elite and genteel society.

Things take an interesting turn with the law enforcement officials after Ross and Lydia’s stepbrother after her to teach her a lesson she would never forget. Both Lydia and Ross find themselves slave to what they arouse in each other, and ultimately learn to trust and love one another on the journey filled with perils and danger they never saw coming.

This is one of the best romances I have read recently and although the book is quite thick its no effort to read through as the intense plot and characters make you feel as if  you are part of the story. And oh yes, I have got to order a Ross Coleman for myself! Sigh!!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | AbeBooks | Half.com

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Seduction by Amanda Quick

Format: E-book
Read with: Adobe Reader
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Bantam Books
Hero: Julian, Earl of Ravenwood
Heroine: Sophy Dorring
Date of Publication: March 1, 1990
Started On: December 2, 2009
Finished On: December 4, 2009

Found this book whilst browsing through FictionDB. I quite enjoyed this book, the story of how Julian, the Earl of Ravenwood, sophisticated and cynical about women in general after a disastrous marriage which ended up with his wife murdered and community folk in general whispering in corners that Julian had killed off his wife due to her nefarious ways, weds Sophy Dorring, brought up in the countryside, thinking that she would be the docile little wife that Julian wants, someone who wouldn’t get into all the trouble his first wife Elizabeth had always been found in.

Julian is in for a surprise when at first Sophy refuses his marriage proposal put forth through her grandfather. Shocked that someone who hadn’t impressed the ton during her coming out, who hadn’t got a single marriage proposal during the time, and quite past the age where the ladies of the ton got married, with very little inheritance to offer and just passable looks had the gall to refuse a godsend of an offer, Julian confronts Sophy on her trip back from an old friend of hers who grows medicinal herbs, a subject of much interest to Sophy.

Ultimately, these two wed, each of them having bargained for a set of conditions to be met, which Julian finds out to be unconventional and fascinating at the same time. Sophy’s conditions being that they wouldn’t consummate their marriage till a three month period during which Sophy and Julian should get to know one another better, her choice of reading material which is far and wide never be influenced by her husband and that she never be cast off to a home in the country side whilst Julian traverses in the city.

Julian quickly realizes the errors in his agreeing to the first condition, when he finds himself in lust with his new wife, whom he tries to seduce, but backfires on him in the most hilarious ways possible. I found myself laughing out loud several times whilst reading through bits of conversation between Julian and Sophy as well as the situations that Sophy tended to land herself in, not the docile and meek wife that Julian had bargained for at all.

To make things more interesting, upon realizing that trying to make Julian fall in love with her when to Sophy’s point of view that Julian had never got over the grief and pain caused to him by his first wife, pursues her little project of finding out who drove her sister to take the life of herself and the baby that she was carrying. With only a black ring of a crude design the only clue as to whom her sister had been holding clandestine meetings with, Sophy embarks upon a mission to make the man who made use of her sister pay for what he had done.

Things get interesting from this moment forward. Sophy and her quirky and eccentric friends help her in their ways to find out what the ring symbolizes, unraveling something far too dangerous that could cost Sophy her life in the end.

All in all, this was quite a fun read which I enjoyed immensely. With a surprising villain in the end, at least it was for me, this book proved to be a ‘seductive’ read which was hard to put down.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer

Format: E-bookMorning Glory
Read with: Stanza
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Hero: Will
Heroine: Elly
Date of Publication: January 1, 1991
Started On:  October 29, 2009
Finished On: October 30, 2009

The first book that I ever read from this author and it proved to be a real satisfying read. The story takes place during the World War II period in the US. Elly was labeled as the crazy one and the town folk didn’t care much for her. Her husband dead, with two kids and one more on the way, she advertises for a husband in the local newspaper.

Will was a drifter who walked into the town looking for a job, after serving time for murder. Answering the ad for a husband, Will never thought that his life would forever be changed by Elly and her children, who give Will something to live for in life.

This story is really sweet, because you can feel both characters develop throughout the novel. Both Elly and Will had given up hope that they would one day be loved by someone like the love described in the novel. The novel was a refreshing change because there were no silly problems that went unresolved because the hero and heroine couldn’t bear to talk honestly with one another. All in all, a real good romance novel, packed with a whole lot of emotions that romance lovers would find themselves reading this book in one go.

Purchase Links: Amazon

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Slightly Shady by Amanda Quick

Format: Hardcoverslightly
Read with: Hardcover Edition
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Lavinia Lake and Tobias March – 1
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
Hero: Tobias March
Heroine: Lavinia Lake
Published on: May 2001
Started On: September 2009
Finished On: October 2009

This is the first book that I have read of this author; Amanda Quick an alias used by Jayne Ann Krentz. This book starts off in Rome, when Tobias barges into the antique shop that Lavinia and her niece had established in order to get by, after being cheated off by the lady with which they had made the journey from London.

Her antique shop shattered on the accounts from Tobias that the shop was being used by a vicious criminal organization for communication amongst their members by hiding messages in the antiques in the shop Lavinia and her niece finds themselves sent off to London and these two meet once again when Lavinia upon being blackmailed by someone, finding out who the blackmailer is, comes to his place to find that someone had murdered him and in the process finds Tobias at the scene who is in search for the diary that the blackmailer was using.

Then begins the rather fascinating journey these two embark upon after forming an uneasy alliance to find the diary before it reaches the wrong hands once again, with Lavinia changing her profession to become a private investigator like Tobias. Desire, passion and love takes a backstage in this novel, which had me laughing at the quirky dialogues between the two and the really funny situations that these two found themselves in at times.

The story ends with a rather unique twist, which I would say that I didn’t really foresee coming.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Sea Fire By Karen Robards

Format: Paperbacksea
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Pirate, Book 2
Publisher: Dell
Hero: Jonathan Hale
Heroine: Lady Catherine Aldley
Published on: November 10, 1998
Started On: August 2009
Finished On: September 26, 2009

Being a long time since I have been able to read a book and write its review. Life happened & I had to give up reading for a little while that kept me from  finishing this book and writing a review about it.

I think that with this book, I would have to agree with the rest of reviewers who read this book. It would have been better if the author had never attempted to write this book, or rather just included whatever she had written in this book in the first book of the series.

The characters in the book never seemed to learn from their mistakes, never seemed to grow up or move on from past grievances and there was too much violence between the hero and the heroine to make me believe that they really loved one another.

Anyhow, I did finish this book agonizing page by page. I guess that says something for the book, or maybe it was just me that wouldn’t put down a book I had spent such a lot on to buy in the first place.

I do not know what I will be reading next. But I will be sure to post a review of it as soon as I am done!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Island Flame by Karen Robards

Format: Paperback
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Pirate, Book 1
Publisher: Dell
Hero: Jonathan Hale
Heroine: Lady Catherine Aldley
First Published on: September 8, 1998
Started On: August 29, 2009
Finished On: August 30, 2009

As usual, I seem to be deviating a LOT from my ‘currently reading pile’ and the ‘to-be-read pile’ which seems to be mounting. This was a book that caught my eye whilst searching for a book on FictionDB. There is a section on the website that displays a book by a featured author. Since I have read books by Karen Robards, my favorite book of hers being Wild Orchids, which I recommend for everyone who loves a good bout of romance, I couldn’t resist but read this one, which sounded exactly like the kind of romance I would love.

Lady Catherine, a lady of immense wealth and gentle breeding, (though she is not so gentle herself), the ship she is traveling on, en route to Portugal, gets attacked by the notorious pirate Jonathan Hale. Crude, cynical beyond most heroes I have encountered and jealous to a fault & possessive as much, Jonathan claims Catherine as his own. Catherine hates Jonathan with a vengeance for treating her like common trash, ultimately making her his mistress, and fears the passion that Jonathan could invoke in her with a single glance.

Her last and final attempt to escape Jonathan lands her in a perilous situation, from which Jonathan risks his life to save her. Nursing him back to health, and falling in love with Jonathan which was a foregone conclusion from the moment they laid their eyes on one another, Catherine vows that she would bring this notorious pirate to heel and make him fall for her.

However, fate had different plans in store for these two, when suddenly their idyllic life on the pirates retreat found them under attack by the British soldiers, thirsting for revenge, thinking that Lady Catherine had been done away with.

Eventually wed, though her father had different plans in store for both of them, leads the reader on an enthralling ride, which I assure you, wouldn’t make you want to put this book down, even for a second.

And the interesting tidbit to this romance is that there is a second book which features these two strong characters, (which is rare for a romance), which I would start on most probably today. Although the second book Sea Fire didn’t get as raved about as Island Flame did, I would form my own opinion about the book in due time.

Until my next review, which most probably should be of Sea Fire by the same author, happy reading everyone!

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N

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