1 to 20 of 24 -
Page:
Review Date: 10/25/2005
"The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old," begins Fran Benedetto, the broken heroine of Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue. With one sweeping sentence, the door to an abused and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of a crushed and tattered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto liked to call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young, energetic nursing student when she met her husband-to-be at a local Brooklyn bar. She was instantly captivated by his dark, brooding looks and magnetic personality, but her fascination soon solidified into a marital prison sentence of incessant abuse and the destruction of her own identity. After an especially horrific beating and rape, Fran realizes that the next attack could be the last. Fearing her son would be left alone with Bobby, she escapes one morning with her child. Fran's salvation comes in the form of Patty Bancroft and Co., a relocation agency for abused women that touts better service than the witness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a few hundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Fran begins a new life. The agency relocates her to Florida, where she becomes Beth Crenshaw, a recently divorced home-care assistant from Delaware. Fran and her son adapt, meeting challenges with unexpected resilience and resolve until their past returns to haunt them. Quindlen renders the intricacies of spousal abuse with eerie accuracy, taking the reader deep within the realm of dysfunctional human ties. However, her vivid descriptions of abuse, emotional disintegration, and acute loneliness at times numb the reader with their realism.
Review Date: 10/12/2005
First in the Irish trilogy
Cordina's Crown Jewel (Cordina's Royal Family, Bk 4) (Silhouette Special Edition, No 1448)
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
310
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
310
Review Date: 10/15/2005
Helpful Score: 1
For a few blessed weeks, Her Royal Highness Camilla de Cordina could be just plain Camilla MacGee. And working for Delaney Caine in Vermont's backwoods offered a perfect refuge from the press. But as her irritation towards the cantankerous archaelogist grew into fascination - then desire - the royal runaway knew she'd soon have to reveal herself.
Del had never needed anyone, and at first he accepted Camilla's presence only grudgingly. But, as the remarkable beauty insinuated herself into Del's self-sufficient life, he found that she filled an emptiness he'd never known was there. Only, what was Camilla hiding?
Del had never needed anyone, and at first he accepted Camilla's presence only grudgingly. But, as the remarkable beauty insinuated herself into Del's self-sufficient life, he found that she filled an emptiness he'd never known was there. Only, what was Camilla hiding?
Review Date: 5/29/2006
Ranch hunk Hank Brownlee wanted only two things from his new housekeeper companionship for his grieving father and some stick-to-your-ribs country cooking. What he got was something altogether different.
The "matron" he'd hired sight unseen turned out to be a blond dynamo and a single mom. True, Maggie Woodward was a widow and she sure could cook, but she was also young and beautiful! And it wasn't long before Maggie and her little tyke had Hank's world turned upside down and his heartstrings twisted all around their dainty fingers...
Now all Hank had to do was convince his wary little widow that happily-ever-after was worth the risk!
The "matron" he'd hired sight unseen turned out to be a blond dynamo and a single mom. True, Maggie Woodward was a widow and she sure could cook, but she was also young and beautiful! And it wasn't long before Maggie and her little tyke had Hank's world turned upside down and his heartstrings twisted all around their dainty fingers...
Now all Hank had to do was convince his wary little widow that happily-ever-after was worth the risk!
Review Date: 10/15/2005
With a wife he loves and an exciting London-based career, architect Charles Waterston's life seems in perfect balance. Nothing in his comfortable existence prepares him for the sudden end to his ten-year marriage--or his unwanted transfer to his firm's New York office. With nothing left to lose, Charlie takes a leave of absence from his job to drive through New England, hoping to make peace with himself.
Christmas is approaching when Charlie leaves New York, heading to Vermont to ski. But a sudden, blinding snowstorm strands him in a small Massachusetts town. There, as if by chance, Charlie meets an elderly widow who offers to rent him her most precious possession: a remote, exquisite lakeside chateau. Hidden deep in the woods, it once belonged to a woman who lived and died there two centuries before. Her name was Sarah Ferguson. And from the moment Charlie sets foot inside the chateau's graceful depths, he feels her presence, and longs to know more about the life she led.
It is Christmas Eve when Charlie first glimpses her, a beautiful young woman with jet black hair. He thinks it is a neighbor playing a joke on him, until he finds her diaries hidden away in an old trunk. As he begins to turn the brittle, dusty pages, Sarah Ferguson comes alive. Intrigued and unafraid, Charlie immerses himself in the diaries, eager to learn more about the woman for whom the house was built. Sarah's first entry is dated 1789, the year she arrived in America. Without self-pity or sentiment, she writes of her harrowing journey from her native England, having fled the brutality of her aristocratic husband. Settling in Massachusetts, Sarah finds an unfamiliar land seething with the turbulence of the Indian wars. Determined to start a new life in the vast new world, Sarah finds freedom--and danger--as she builds her home in the wilderness and meets a man who will transform her life. His name is François de Pellerin, a French nobleman adopted by Indians and drawn into the battle for the growing nation. Their fateful union is a testament to a love so powerful it reaches across the centuries. And for Charlie Waterston, caught between Sarah's world and his own, their story is a gift--one that gives him the courage to let go of his past, and the freedom to grasp a future that is right before his eyes.
Christmas is approaching when Charlie leaves New York, heading to Vermont to ski. But a sudden, blinding snowstorm strands him in a small Massachusetts town. There, as if by chance, Charlie meets an elderly widow who offers to rent him her most precious possession: a remote, exquisite lakeside chateau. Hidden deep in the woods, it once belonged to a woman who lived and died there two centuries before. Her name was Sarah Ferguson. And from the moment Charlie sets foot inside the chateau's graceful depths, he feels her presence, and longs to know more about the life she led.
It is Christmas Eve when Charlie first glimpses her, a beautiful young woman with jet black hair. He thinks it is a neighbor playing a joke on him, until he finds her diaries hidden away in an old trunk. As he begins to turn the brittle, dusty pages, Sarah Ferguson comes alive. Intrigued and unafraid, Charlie immerses himself in the diaries, eager to learn more about the woman for whom the house was built. Sarah's first entry is dated 1789, the year she arrived in America. Without self-pity or sentiment, she writes of her harrowing journey from her native England, having fled the brutality of her aristocratic husband. Settling in Massachusetts, Sarah finds an unfamiliar land seething with the turbulence of the Indian wars. Determined to start a new life in the vast new world, Sarah finds freedom--and danger--as she builds her home in the wilderness and meets a man who will transform her life. His name is François de Pellerin, a French nobleman adopted by Indians and drawn into the battle for the growing nation. Their fateful union is a testament to a love so powerful it reaches across the centuries. And for Charlie Waterston, caught between Sarah's world and his own, their story is a gift--one that gives him the courage to let go of his past, and the freedom to grasp a future that is right before his eyes.
Review Date: 10/25/2005
In the sunswept beauty of San Francisco, Gillian Forrester is filled with the joy of a love that will surely last. But a painful betrayal forces her to flee to New York and a new life. There she discovers an exciting new career and a deep, enveloping passion...only to have her newfound happiness shaken to its core. Now Gillian must choose between her future and her past, to find in the deepest desires of her heart the one way, the only way of...Going Home.
Review Date: 10/25/2005
Helpful Score: 4
Grange House was once the family home of a prosperous quarry owner, but a spinster daughter, reclusive one-time "authoress" Miss Nell Grange, is the only Grange left on the premises; a formidable lady cook and a managing hostess run the hotel. Accompanied by her parents, 17-year-old Maisie Thomas has been a guest at Grange House every summer of her life. She's enthralled with Miss Grange and dreams of being a writer herself. This summer's visit augurs ill, however. A pair of lovers are discovered drowned on a foggy morning, there is a mysterious grave in the woods, and Miss Grange drops strange hints about babies and deaths, drawing Maisie into an examination of the past and conjuring up ghosts. Meanwhile, Maisie's parents are pushing her toward a marriage to Jonathan Lanman, her father's young associate. Maisie's father asserts that marriage "puts solid ground beneath one's feet...a place. You can not have a history without a place." But Maisie is drawn to another guest, imaginative, bantering travel writer Bart Hunnowell. The format is a story within a story: as Miss Grange recounts the often improbable events of her life, Maisie is lost in a blur of fantasy and reality until she begins to doubt even her own identity. The fog, the dense woods and the sea itself are virtual characters in poet Blake's (Full Turn) gothic debut, reflecting the gloom of long-kept secrets. A nighttime assignation in a rowboat finally threatens tragedy, and the narrative plunges to a two-hankie finale.
Review Date: 10/12/2005
This is the second book in the Three Sisters Island Trilogy.
Review Date: 5/29/2006
In the feuding English court, gentle Lady Madelyne suffered the cruel whims of her ruthless brother, Baron Louddon. Then, in vengeance for a bitter crime, Baron Duncan of Wexton-the Wolf-unleashed his warriors against Louddon's main. Exquisite Madelyne was the prize he catured...but when he gazed upon the proud beauty, he pledged to protect her with his life. In his rough-hewn castle, Duncan proved true to his honor. But when at last their noble passion conquered them both, she surrendered with all her soul. Now, for love, Madelyne would stand fast...as bravely as her Lord, the powerful Wolf who fought for...Honor's Splendour.
Review Date: 10/12/2005
Book three in the Chesapeake Bay Saga
Review Date: 10/12/2005
This is the second book in the Key Trilogy from Nora Roberts. This is Dana's Story.
Review Date: 10/15/2005
The First in the Key Trilogy Series
Review Date: 10/12/2005
The conclusion to the stunning Key Trilogy
Review Date: 4/4/2006
Loved it, it was a great read :)
Review Date: 10/25/2005
From the same authors who brought you Once upon a Castle comes Once upon a Star, a welcome addition to romance anthologies. Not only are the four tales extraordinary (linked together with the common thread of magic), each contains an element of enchantment. In Nora Roberts's "Ever After," the gift of an ancient pendant belonging to a fairy changes two lives forever. Jill Gregory's "Catch a Falling Star" finds a princess forced into a political marriage with a wife-murdering barbarian, while Ruth Ryan Langan's "The Curse of Castle Clough" offers a ghost who helps save a castle from the auction block and its owner from a life without love. Finally, a burned-out American tourist travels back in time to be rescued by--and to rescue--a handsome sailing captain in "Starry, Starry Night" by Marianne Willman. Sit back, put your feet up, and travel to distant times and places with four of romantic fiction's best authors
Review Date: 5/29/2006
Archaeologist Cecily Petersen has loved Tate Winthrop since she was a teen, but the handsome Native American refuses to consider a mixed marriage. Instead, he becomes her white knight, protecting her from an abusive stepfather and arranging college grants and housing. But when Cecily discovers that the "grants" were actually outright gifts from Tate, she's furious. Her anger shifts their relationship from friends to lovers and forces them both to confront deeply held convictions and fears. When Cecily learns of a political scandal that could threaten Tate, she's determined to shield him, even though she knows it's likely that he'll never forgive her for the necessary deception.
Review Date: 10/15/2005
As Jay Berman lingers in a coma, his young wife, Lainey, is the only one who believes he will recover. While he lies motionless, she hopes to reach him by offering reminders of the ordinary life they shared - sweet-smelling flowers, his softly textured shirt, spices from their kitchen. And throughout the ordeal, Lainey is sustained by her relationships with two very special women, each of whom teaches her about the enduring bond of friendship and the genuine power of hope.
Review Date: 4/28/2007
Rising Tides is the second book in the trilogy of the Quinn brothers.
Set on the windswept shores of the Chesapeake Bay, Nora Roberts's Rising Tides, the second book in the Quinn Brothers trilogy, continues the story of the lives and loves of adopted brothers Ethan, Cameron, and Philip Quinn. Eager to honor their father's dying wish that their other brother, Seth, be cared for, the three settle into life with a 10-year-old. Of all the brothers, it is Ethan who finds himself drawn to the young boy, because both suffered horrific abuse before being adopted by the Quinns. Time hasn't extinguished Ethan's pain, only buried it deep within his heart, a fact that may keep him from the only woman he has ever loved. A moving contemporary with universal appeal, Rising Tides is Nora Roberts at her best.
Set on the windswept shores of the Chesapeake Bay, Nora Roberts's Rising Tides, the second book in the Quinn Brothers trilogy, continues the story of the lives and loves of adopted brothers Ethan, Cameron, and Philip Quinn. Eager to honor their father's dying wish that their other brother, Seth, be cared for, the three settle into life with a 10-year-old. Of all the brothers, it is Ethan who finds himself drawn to the young boy, because both suffered horrific abuse before being adopted by the Quinns. Time hasn't extinguished Ethan's pain, only buried it deep within his heart, a fact that may keep him from the only woman he has ever loved. A moving contemporary with universal appeal, Rising Tides is Nora Roberts at her best.
Review Date: 10/25/2005
Wealthy and gorgeous Billy Ikehorn has a secret, but when her movie producer husband Vito Orsini's never-before-mentioned teenage daughter shows up, Billy's secret, and her marriage, become irrelevant. She mothers Gigi, starting her off, naturally, with an expensive new haircut and wardrobe. Meanwhile, Billy's Beverly Hills-based designer clothes store, Scruples, is so successful she opens new branches. Then a tragedy involving her key staff sends the distraught Billy fleeing to Paris, where she has an affair with a sculptor. Gigi moves to New York, lives with lingerie model Sasha (the "Great Slut") Nevsky, and falls for Sasha's brother Zach. Ultimately, Billy realizes that having scads of money doesn't buy happiness (though it does make it possible to dine in five-star restaurants, live in groovy houses, wear fabulous clothes, stay forever young-looking, and finance your own business venture to design less expensive clothes for average-income folks
Review Date: 5/29/2006
Helpful Score: 3
Chelsea Fergusson, daughter of the impoverished Earl of Dumfries in this 18th-century romance, foils an unwanted marriage to the wealthy but loathsome Bishop Hatfield in an unlikely manner: she makes herself unacceptable by losing her virginity to London's leading rake, Sinjin St. John, Duke of Seth. When Chelsea becomes pregnant, her indignant father and brothers abduct Sinjin and forcibly wed the two, then separate them and imprison him. This sets off a series of escapades that climax in Sinjin's rescue by a band of desert bedouins led by an American Indian. Can the new duke and duchess now find bliss in licentious London? It hardly matters. Sinjin leaves to buy Arabian horses in Tunis, where he is captured by an evil Bey. Chelsea determines to storm the Barbary coast and ransom him. . . . but all ends well in this rollicking tale, which proves to be as robust, sensual and adventurous as its protagonists.
1 to 20 of 24 -
Page:
