Morwen and her cats take center stage in the third book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, which was a bold choice that paid off. This time around we’re Calling on Dragons and Morwen is leading the way with Cimorene in tow. I think Ms. Wrede did…
This is the second in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede and I thought she made the right call when she chose a new viewpoint for this one. I loved Cimorene, but it was fun to see her from the outside, too. In Searching for Dragons, someone (obviously…
I don’t remember much about the Enchanted Forest Chronicles from when I read them as they were published in the 90s, but I know I loved them and thought they were both revolutionary and hilarious. Let’s talk about how they hold up. The first in the series, chronologically, is Dealing…
There will be plenty of people who tell you that Harlequin romances, especially those by Betty Neels, are fluff and complete nonsense and not worth the read. Sometimes they’re right. The Doctor’s Girl by Betty Neels is everything that makes people cringe about this genre. Loveday, whose name is literally…
At the time of the publishing of this Betty Neels book, I was not much older than the protagonist and was either working for the philanderer who impregnated three women in a few months, or I was working at the phone sex place. Either way, my experience of the early…
My dad was in the army so I moved around a lot, and I thought I had trouble with putting down roots. I had no idea how good I had it. In The Warbler by Sarah Beth Durst, Elisa is rootless and completely unmoored by a curse that has kept…
I have kind of a love/hate relationship with Lee Child and his most famous brain-child, Jack Reacher. I hate how much I love him. When you read a Jack Reacher book, you know what you’re going to get, some kind of inciting incident, disgusting villains who deserve all the violence…
This is the Chet and Bernie book when things get almost too dark for me. Farewell to Arfs by Spencer Quinn is the fifteenth book in the series and we’ve seen them through some dark times with Chet’s point of view softening the sometimes awful, often violent events of the…
Betty Neels is a genre all her own, and her books are unmistakeably hers. This is one where she tries a little harder to break the mold, and it is adorable. It’s a little like watching your grandma trying to use modern tech or slang and fumbling it but looking…
For many years, I thought Betty Neels based her beloved Dutch doctor characters on her own husband. Am I the only one a little scandalized to discover that her husband was Dutch, but a sailor not a rich medical professional, and those dishy Dutch doctors were her coworkers. Betty, I’m…
