Marie, Dancing

Marie, Dancing by Carolyn Meyer and performed by Carine Montbertrand was a very engaging story around the model for Edgar Degas’s famous statue La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Little Dancer of Fourteen Years).  Degas and his friend and collaborator Mary Cassatt (often in the company of her sister Lydia) are depicted painting some of…

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, written and read by Italian Brooklynite Giulia Melucci, was a mildly amusing and self-indulgent memoir of meals cooked and boyfriends lost over twenty years.  Melucci’s reading was easy to listen to – though I wouldn’t recommend listening on an empty stomach.  The book would have been more interesting…

Judith Fertig

The Cake Therapist Judith Fertig’s first venture into fiction stays well within the realm of baking: the protagonist is an innovative baker who uses her somewhat mystical ability to associate flavor preferences with emotions and experiences to evoke transformative responses in those who eat her confections.  The story shuttles between a contemporary timeline with Neely…

Carly Phillips

Cross My Heart Cross My Heart is a contemporary romance with skullduggery and redemption to drive along the plot.  The reading by Marie Caliendo works well for the central couples but is a little off for the older characters, especially the mothers.  The hero and heroine have been emotionally static since they were separated in…

Kristen Callihan

Darkest London series Regency romance thrillers with paranormal elements. Firelight I liked the story – but I would have preferred the heroine to be a little less invincible and a little more trusting; and the hero to be a little less like Beast.  Callihan makes creative use of the restrictions of the couple’s secrets in…

Katie Lane

The Overnight Billionaires The conceit of this series by Katie Lane is that three extremely hunky Beaumont brothers working to charm their way out of the Southern bayou, inherit shares in a San Francisco-based lingerie business (French Kiss), decide to run the company instead of selling out, and fantastically succeed in both business and love. …

Catherine Coulter

Contemporary Thrillers Power Play (2014) by Catherine Coulter and read by MacLeod Andrews and Renee Raudman had some likeable and despicable characters but with an overly burdened plot (or should I say “plots”?) and mystical elements (most notably a villain capable of instant hypnosis), this audiobook was just okay.  I did like the reading; having…

Fern Michaels

When the Snow Falls is a collection by Fern Michaels, Nancy Bush, Rosanna Chiofalo, and Lin Stepp connected by couples finding romance in snowy climes.  The library has this filed with the Christmas books but the stories didn’t have much to do with the holidays. I most related to Fern Michaels’s story, more for its…

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Match Me If You Can as a book on CD read by Anna Fields was an amusing long-drive listen with a few LOL moments and only a couple of winces and eye rolls.  The Chicago setting and realistic professional (and somewhat professional) women was appreciated.  As in some of the Regency romance series the preponderance…

Castle Krentz Quick

Jayne Ann Krentz publishes under her married name (Jayne Ann Krentz), her given (maiden) name Jayne Castle, and and her pen name Amanda Quick.  Her Krentz novels are in the murder mystery / thriller / romance genres with a contemporary setting – often the wine country north of San Francisco.  Many of the lead characters…