Karen Harbaugh

'Night Fires', the first book in the 'de la Fer' series is one of the first romance novels I ever read, so Karen Harbaugh holds a special place in my memory. That being said, I enjoyed 'Night Fires' more than this book. This book was excellent, but it was missing some of the rawness of the first book, could be the fact that these characters are human and the last 'de la Fer' was not. I also would have liked to see some sort of segway from the first book into the second, like how they are connected besides the family name. I don't know about anyone else but I am not all up and up on my French history. Beyond those minor flaws though, this book was great. The characters are real, the history definitely seems well researched and the plot moved at a generally good pace. I liked Catherine's character a lot, she is a strong women and I always love to see strong women in historical type romances. I also have a soft spot for Jack, because he acknowledged his love for Catherine as soon as he felt it, didn't have to do any of that running around crap. I enjoyed this book and hope to see many more 'de la Fer' books in the future.… (meer)

Amazon preorder. I adore all four of these authors, and I'm interested in Grail stuff. I only am giving it a four though.

Part of my problem is that all four of these stories felt -- well -- short. I didn't feel that way with the two previous anthologies they've done but I wanted more out of these.

I also am a little uncomfortable with the whole "fated mates" themes, which are certainly convenient in novellas, but which give me a twinge of discomfort. That said, these stories have some really interesting wrinkles and wonderful images and variations and I still recommend it highly. The use of the WW2 era in particular was very nifty.

I also like the use of the Grail myth stories in a way that felt true to what I know about them.… (meer)