Queen's Library

The Portrait by Hazel Statham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Harzel Statham created a delightful romance with The Portrait with two people on a journey of rediscovering, friendship and love.

Edward Thurston, the Earl of Sinclair returns home a changed man. Severely injured with the lost of an arm, Edward doesn't think it would be wise to continue with his betrothal to Lady Jennifer and force on her his scars. Carried around with him is a portrait that have saved him and kept his live with hope, but who is this woman and will he find happiness with her or......?

I found all the characters a delightful surprise. Edward while he didn't feel the love of his life would accept him as he is now, he doesn't let it overtake his life. Plus, the trouble that his brother and his friend get into, he has to be kept on his feet at all time.

Lady Jennifer or Jen was a bundle of energy, who has a great head on her shoulders who never stays in one mold but brings a breathe of fresh air who prove…

The Beauty Within by Marguerite Kaye

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There's something so appealing (well to me) about the supposed plain jane blossoming and helping her hero loosening his own chains that bind him and set him free.
Lady Cressida Armstrong and Giovanni di Matteo were both such intriguing characters both on the same coin and how they deal with the emotional scars their fathers have inflected on them through their lives. Making them who they are when we first meet them.
Giovanni is a well know portrayal artist whose become hallow from his success of the "perfect" art he paints to please those of the ton. What burns deep in his heart is the prove his biological father ,a count ,wrong and that he can live without riches and show what a true artist he is. When he meets Cressida he sees much of himself in her and wants to help her break free from her chains. Only he finds himself being helped instead.

Cressida finds joy in her mathematics (a model of Ada Lovela…

A Highly Respectable Widow by Melinda McRae

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've truly fallen in love with McRae's writing and early on my love for this writing is tested with her 'A Highly Respectable Widow' that held me but at the same time wanted me to smack the hero upside the head!

Earl of Knowlton is bored. A rake of the tenth-degree, he bored with his life of parties and easy conquests. Thinking to get away from it all, he journeys to his country seat to find some sort of peace to his otherwise mundane life at the moment. There he's floored when he meets the lovely widow Katherine Mayfield whose bright red hair not only catches his eye but he thinks she maybe the cure to his boredom with an short liaison between the two. He didn't count of Kate saying "No"

Kate has had her fill of men thinking she maybe an easy conquests because of her red hair and being a widow. She knows Knowlton is cut from the same cloth but as she starts to discover more about h…

The Duke's Daughter by Melinda McRae

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love coming across an amazing author like Melinda McRae whose works turned out to be a hidden gem in itself.

As a young sheltered seventeen year old and daughter of a powerful Duke, Elizabeth was seduce and ruined by a fortune hunter. When the duke washed his hands of her, Elizabeth has made a living in the country isolated from her father and family for many years until on a snowy day Somerset Graham, the Earl of Wentworth shows up at her doorstep needing help.

Somers is entrance by Elizabeth even when he receives a frosty reception from her he can't help but wonder about her past and what a lady is doing stuck in the country. Out to repay her for her kindness in helping him, Somers uncovers more of Elizabeth's past that could undo the love that is starting the blossom between the two.

I never care for pushy heroes who think they know better then the heroine and with Somers is pushy ways did at times …

Tarnished Amongst the Ton by Louise Allen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars




A continuation of the Herriard family series, we pick up with Anusha and Nick's son Ashe as he swims a new current of the ton and finding a woman in Phyllida who he finds fascinating and mysterious and wonders what she's hiding..?

Louise Allen wins me over yet again with 'Tarnished Amongst the Ton' picking up years after 'Forbidden Jewel of India' Nick and Anusha are not Marquess and Marchioness of Eldonstone and journey they haven't wanted to travel. Now along with their son Ashe and daughter Sara, they have to travel new waters, not much so then Ashe. Much like his father before him. Ashe was a type of mercenary who worked in some dangerous jobs for his uncle a Raja. Ashe also holds a great weight on his heart after the death of a woman he thought he loved and blames himself for her death.
Looking to a marriage for convenience shake to help his family, when he comes across the mysteri…