I was in the mood for a light read and while I was perusing my TBR piles, boxes, and shelves, I came across this and remembered that Lillelara had recently read it and enjoyed it.

I definitely enjoyed The Grand Sophy better, but this one got me through without complaint.  I struggled to really feel invested in the story or any of the characters though; it seemed to missing just that little bit of depth - or else my reading slump had dulled my reading sense, rendering everything a bit duller.  Given Heyer's hit and miss record, either is possible.  Or perhaps a bit of both:  the final scene at Rattray's rectory perked me right up; in that moment, the characters popped to life for me and I cared about what happened next.  

I haven't read even close to Heyer's entire backlist, but I'd firmly place this midway on a scale of those I've read so far.

This one was an average chick-lit/romance that was only marginally about books, though they sounded like heavenly books in a library out of my dreams.  The setting was the same as The Bookshop on the Corner, and a couple of characters from the first book play minor roles in this one, but otherwise the story is completely stand alone.

And it's ok.  It's saved from complete mediocrity by a plot twist that was unexpected - at least by me; with my limited backlist of books in this genre, it's probably not hard to surprise me.

It was a diverting read, though not as good as The Book Charmer, whose strong sense of place kept interfering in my mind with the weaker one here;  Perhaps I might have enjoyed this one more if it hadn't come on the tails of that more vividly written and charming book.

An early stand-alone mystery from Carolyn Hart, that was originally bought by Harlequin and marketed as a gothic romance.  This is one of those stories that is best discovered by someone who hasn't already read a fair variety of romantic suspense.  With nothing to compare it to, one might find this a very lively and escapist story.

Leah arrives in South Carolina after the death of her paternal grandmother and Leah's subsequent discovery that she herself has been presumed dead since she was 2.  Wanting to find out why, and the truth about what happened to her parents, she arrives at the Devereaux Plantation full of questions, discovering she still has a maternal grandmother who is thrilled she's alive, and 3 cousins that might not be so thrilled.

This slim volume reads exactly like a Barbara Michaels in many respects.  Hart says in the introduction to this re-issue that she suddenly found herself in a market that had no interest in women writing murder mysteries, and after 9 years of rejection, found that she could sell her books if she made them romances.  This bow to contemporary demands is apparent in the romance: it's insta-love at it's most glaring, and more than a little bit naive and awkward.  

Sandwiched in between in the awkward romance is, unfortunately, only a slightly less awkward mystery, but knowing what I know about Hart's real mysteries, I have no problem believing it's because she had to cram it in along the edges.  It's a good mystery; just not one that was allowed the space to unfold naturally.

It's definitely nowhere close to Hart's normal standards of writing, but hints of what will come in her future Death on Demand series are evident: haunting atmosphere and fully fleshed out characters that are capable of passionate acts of love and cruelty.  

If reviews came with musical accompaniment, you'd be hearing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah as you read this.  I've finally finished this book.

There's a combination of factors involved in the blame for my incredibly slow progress: I'm in a slump, and therefore easily distracted by anything right now - it doesn't even have to be shiny; life has been busy and when I did sit down to read, interruptions abounded; this is not Whitney's best work.  By a long shot.

Susan's father took her away from her grandmother's home and cut off all contact, after the death of her mother under mysterious circumstances.  Susan was the only witness and at 5, suppressed the memories.  Now her father's dead, she's an adult, and she's returning to her grandmother's home in Virginia to get to know her and figure out why she can't remember her own mother.  But grandma has a trunk-load of secrets she's less than enthusiastic about sharing, and nobody else seems to want Susan to come back at all. 

This is one of Whitney's later books, written in the 80's, and she's still got her magic touch when it comes to atmosphere, setting, and characters.  But the story dragged... the pacing was continental drift slow, and there was so much time spent in the heads of the characters, it was a challenge to keep myself engaged.  And when everything came together with a solution/ending that was twisted in that way in which Whitney excelled (this is an author who really understood long-simmering anger and epic grudges), I was so ...exhausted by the slow pacing that I just couldn't feel the punch I should have. 

It's good, it's even a bit haunting, but you have to really be patient with it, and in the midst of a slump, patience is thin on the ground.

If you read the Southern Eclectic novels, this is a prequel back story for one of the characters, Marianne, and how she ended up with Carl.

It's short, but it covers all the bases, introducing most of the family, including one character that dies before the full-length books begin.  We get a bit more insight into Donna, Marianne's curmudgeonly mother.  Less funny than most of the other books, it's sweet in its way and since I went in already invested in the characters, I enjoyed it well enough.