Featuring reviews, author biographies, and special features, Romance Reviews is designed as a guide to romantic reading. While primarily covering romance novels, it also delves into mysteries and other types of fiction, but all works reviewed include some romance. Ratings of romance novels are designed to help you make a choice of what is right for you. A new edition will appear the first of each month.
Most
Exciting Start to a Story
Some stories take a little while to warm you up to the plot. Not these! These have starts that don't fool around, but begin with a bang. (How unusual to have so many good starts this time!)
1.) It Happened One Night, by Lisa Dale.
"Lana Biel had always believed that the most significant experiences of life would most likely occur somewhere equally as significant - like mountaintops, cathedrals, or under majestic skies. But instead, her whole future hung in the balance here - a place that until now had no significance whatsoever - the tiny cinderblock bathroom of the Wildflower Barn.
'Are you okay in there?' Eli asked through the door."
2.) An Echo in the Bone, by Diana Gabaldon.
"The pirate's head had disappeared. William heard the speculations from a group of idlers on the quay nearby, wondering whether it would be seen again.
'Na, him be gone for good,' said a ragged man of mixed blood, shaking his head. 'De all-gator don' take him, de water will.'
A backwoodsman shifted his tobacco and spat into the water in disagreement.
'No, he's good for another day - two, maybe. Then gristly bits what holds the head on, they dry out in the sun. Tighten up like iron. Seen it many a time with deer carcasses.'
William saw Mrs. MacKenzie glance quickly at the harbor, then away. She looked pale, he thought, and maneuvered himself slightly so as to block her view of the men and the brown flood of high tide, though since it was high - the corpse tied to its stake was naturally not visible. The stake was, though - a stark reminder of the price of crime. The pirate had been staked to drown on the mudflats several days before, the persistence of his decaying corpse an ongoing topic of public conversation."
3.) Dark Summer, by Iris Johansen.
"'You're not going to find anyone, you crazy dog.' Jude Marrok climbed over another pile of rubble, trying to keep up with the black Lab. 'And I'm not going to keep in chasing after you. I'll give you fifteen more minutes. After that, I'm calling the helicopter.'
Ned didn't even look back as he sniffed desperately at the remains of houses toppled by the earthquake. He was making soft, whimpering noises as he searched the ruins for life."
4.) Chosen By Desire, by Kate Perry.
"'I can't believe I'm doing this.' With a furtive glance behind her, Carrie tiptoed down the dark stone corridor. At the beginning of the monastery tour, they'd explicitly said it was forbidden to wander from the group, and since she'd been on the tour ten times in the past ten days, she couldn't play blond and clueless.
But she hadn't come all the way from San Francisco to China to go home empty-handed."
5.) Sins of the Flesh, by Caridad Pineiro.
"The day the music died, Caterina Shaw did as well.
Not physically, although she understood the death of her body was inevitable. She had to come to terms with that reality some time ago. She had even managed to deal with the blindness caused by the tumor eating away at her brain. But then the pain had become so great that it had silenced the music, stealing away the only thing that had made life worth the anguish."
6. Digging Up Otis, by T. Dawn Richard.
"I should have known I could never go back to a normal life after the first murder, not to my previous life of late morning naps, subdued quilting bees and ladies' teas. Staring death in the face will make you different. it did me."
7. The French Mistress, by Susan Holloway Scott.
"You have heard much wickedness spoken of me, haven't you?
Don't pretend otherwise. I beg you, for long ago I learned to see dissemblers for what they are. I know the truth, just as I know every word and breath of the hateful slanders that have been hurled at me. It is what comes of being a loyal daughter of France, here in this foreign land. I cannot change who I am, or what I have done. The English will always despise me, and that cannot be changed, either."
8. The Sweethearts' Knitting Club, by Lori Wilde.
"'You got anybody special waiting for you on the outside?'
Jesse Calloway froze with the only surviving remnant from his good-for-nothing father, his battered old Timex, half-strapped onto his wrist.
Immediately the image of Flynn MacGregor, looking the way she'd looked the last time he'd seen her, peppered his mind."