It was a bit of a sad weekend for this romance lover. One of Northern Virginia’s two main local used bookstores closed its doors today. I was able to snap up 20 romances by various authors (including four by the lovely and delightful Liz Talley and a bunch of old school historicals by Iris Johansen,
Living in Secret is the third book of Jackie Ashenden’s Living In series. Typical of Ashenden, the emotional intensity is off-the-charts. But what I love about her books is that it isn’t ever just angst for angst’s sake. She’s not afraid to give her characters serious problems and genuine personality flaws. Her heroines aren’t just
I love Jackie Ashenden’s books. I love that many are set somewhere other than the United States. This one, for example, is set in New Zealand. I love that her characters are messed up and often kinda kinky, but that the two things are not directly related. And her characters never eat, which leaves me
The other day, my proclivity for loving really, really broken characters and gleefully watching as an author puts them through the wringer came up in a conversation on Twitter. The context was Jackie Ashenden’s Having Her, in which a hero with a schizophrenic mother and a heroine with a struggling business and virginity issues tumble
image courtesy of JackieAshenden.com Scene: Bangkok. Take one back-packing heroine and one chess genius hero. Add heat. That’s pretty much Black Knight White Queen in a nutshell. A peanut shell. This erotic romance has quite a bit more emotional range than it seems at first blush. Aleks is a Russian chess champion in Thailand for a
