Parlor Games and Other Stories
Jess Michaels, Leda Swann and Julie TempletonHistorical erotic romance
Available from Avon
ISBN: 978-0-06-88229-7
May 2006
| Fallen Angel by Jess Michaels has Arabella Nichols in a predicament - someone wants her dead. She decides that John Valentine, ex-Bow Street Runner, would be the perfect person to protect her and act as her lover. However, John is not the pushover she thought she was getting. John feels he needs personal information from her, in order to find the would-be killer, and she is unwilling to part with anything personal, except her body. These two wounded, stubborn and proud people are about to learn some very valuable lessons but will it be too late? Jess Michaels does a fantastic job with her characters. Their reasons for some of the things they do are very real and Ms. Michaels brings them to life admirably!!!
Sarah Chesham is an orphan, who was raised as a curate's daughter. She has fallen on hard times, having been dismissed from her milliner's position. She goes into a coffeehouse for sustenance and manages to get way more than a meal. Tom Wilde is a reporter who is looking for more "dirt" on a certain VIP, in order to expose his adulterous actions. While Sarah wants to play Parlor Games, Tom wants so much more! What they find is each other, even though they have a rocky road ahead of them due to outside influences. Leda Swann presents a somewhat skeptical story with an incredulous heroine. I had a very hard time believing that a curate's daughter would know some of the things that Sarah knew! However, Tom was a wonderful hero and the villain made me cringe! Terri Campbell finds herself in Scotland, angry and confused, after fleeing London and her two-timing ex-fiancé. While touring an old priory, she hears the mysterious story of Annabelle MacLellan and Laird Brochan Douglas. After the tour is over, she opens a door in the priory and finds herself in the 13th century and nuns in the priory think she's Annabelle MacLellan! Annabelle's father placed her there to keep her safe from the vengeful Brochan but to no avail - Brochan kidnaps Annabelle/Terri. There is something between the two but she is the daughter of the man that murdered his brother…or is she? Annabelle/Terri finds life in Medieval Scotland quite different and yet being with Brochan makes the difficulties easier to handle……until an incident occurs that sends Terri back to the her old life in London. Are these two lovers doomed to be apart forever? Julie Templeton's Border Lord is a terrific read. She gives us a modern day heroine thrust into an impossible situation and she walks away with the biggest prize of all - love! Brochan is an Alpha hero who falls immediately for his enemy's daughter but once he hears Annabelle/Terri's explanation, he accepts it and then does what he must to get back the love of his life. Ms. Templeton does a wonderful job with the emotions in this book - you could almost "feel" them! At the beginning and end of this story, the heroine is Terri and once she hits Medieval Scotland, she's Annabelle. Parlor Games and Other Stories is a first-rate anthology that should be read by every fan of hot, sexy historical romances.
Overall rating:
Reviewer: Pam |
