Desire by Blood by Melissa Schroeder

Enter the world of By Blood where an entire class of vampires operates within the glittering realm of the Victorian ton.

A man with a secret.

Nicodemus Blackburn has seen the best and worst of mankind. Five hundred years of dealing with them teaches the vampire to be very wary of the creatures. Unfortunately, alarming events leave him no choice but to enter the world of the ton to hunt a rogue vampire—one who is making his own army of blood thirsty vampires. Searching for the villain is not the worst of his troubles. That can be laid at the feet of bluestocking Lady Cordelia Collingsworth.

A woman on a mission.

Cordelia has always been an outcast, even in her own family. She has forged her way in the world with her ability to write, and Nico Blackburn is the focus of her next article. Before she can obtain any information about the mysterious man, she is pulled headlong into a scandal that leaves her with no choice but to marry Nico—a man with dangerous secrets.

A passion that consumes them both.

Thrust into a world she knows nothing of, Cordelia finds herself falling in love with a man who claims to be a vampire. As their passion grows, so does the danger around them and Nico will have to call on all of his powers to protect the one thing he has realized he cannot live without: his opinionated, infuriating, and thoroughly delectable wife.

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A rather compelling story that draws you in almost from the first page. The attraction between Cordelia and Nico is palpable and evident from the first moment they meet. It's little surprise that within hours they end up in a clinch that threatens to compromise her reputation if he doesn't marry her, which of course he does. From then on they have to work at getting to know one another at the same time as the desire between them refuses to be denied and keeps pulling them together again and again whatever other differences they may have.

One Knight's Bargain by Alexandra O'Hurley

Sybille de Campion has been raising her three youngest brothers after her family abandons them for Paris. She has her hands full with trying to hold the floundering castle together with only two doddering knights and a rheumy cook to aid her. When a knight with a violent reputation rides to the gates with his men, claiming to have bought the castle and all its contents, she fears for their very lives.

Sir Eustache of Rouen has spent the last three years trying to raise the funds to buy Sybille’s hand, only to stumble across her penniless father on his return to Paris. He buys the castle and all its contents, including the beautiful Sybille, the woman he’s longed for. But she knows of his bastardly reputation and he soon realizes he must show her his softer side if he’s to win her heart. Hopefully, he can find it.



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A fairly short tale that is decently well written, though a bit lacking in substance perhaps. The characters are developed fairly well though, such that you actually care about them before long, the heroine a bit more than the hero since most of it is told from her POV. I had expected something more erotic, and though there is heat between them, there is only on actual sex scene, and while it is nice, it's not totally scorching hot. Still, for the price (free), you can't really go wrong with this little story, provided you like historical romance set in medieval times.

• One Knight's Bargain on Goodreads
• Alexandra O'Hurley's website

My Lord Vampire by Debbie Raleigh (a/k/a Alexandra Ivy)

While the ton dances and gossips, another kind of society altogether claims the London night as its own. By the light of the moon, three noble vampires entrusted with the protection of their kind will discover that human desire is far from lost to them—and that love may be the only thing they long for more than life everlasting...

Midnight Kiss

When an old gypsy woman gives Sally Jenkins a mysterious amulet—promising much happiness if she safeguards it, and doom if she gives it to another—Sally is intrigued. Born on the wrong side of the coverlet, and currently her half sister's drudge, Sally has never had anything of value to call her own. Then a tragic carriage accident en route to London suddenly presents Sally with the chance to live her near twin's life.

Masquerading as Simone Gilbert, Sally is soon the toast of the ton, hosting dazzling parties and cozy salons—and the object of two men's dogged courtship. Sally senses a dangerous hunger beneath Tristan Soltern's smooth-mannered interest that repulses her, but she is drawn to elegant, black-eyed Gideon Ravel—and tempted to prove to him that she is exactly what she seems.

It's a risky game—especially when she discovers that Gideon himself is something other than the refined gentleman she believes him to be, something far more dangerous and unbearably seductive...

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This book starts off from an interesting premise and for the most part delivers on it. You've got the good vamp, the evil vamp, and the human maiden that's caught in the tug of war between them. She's duly repulsed by the evil one without really knowing why, and strangely drawn to the good one, again without really knowing why. Add in the backdrop of London high society and you potentially have enough varied intrigue to keep things really interesting. Unfortunately there's a certain flatness and predictability to it all. Not entirely, for the author does keep you guessing just how exactly it's all going to play out, and she does keep one or two surprises up her sleeve, but still I found it to be lacking a bit in depth.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen's club.

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing.

But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile.

If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all—the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love.

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A fun read that will have you laughing and cringing at turns. Surprisingly modern in many ways, the characters are still bound by the morals and social restrictions of their time which both adds to the hilarity and makes you feel sympathy for the characters at times for the social bonds they have to live with.

Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James

A marquess's sheltered only daughter, Lady Roberta St. Giles falls in love with a man she glimpses across a crowded ballroom: a duke, a game player of consummate skill, a notorious rakehell who shows no interest in marriage—until he lays eyes on Roberta.

Yet the Earl of Gryffyn knows too well that the price required to gain a coronet is often too high. Damon Reeve, the earl, is determined to protect the exquisite Roberta from chasing after the wrong destiny.

Can Damon entice her into a high-stakes game of his own, even if his heart is likely to be lost in the venture?






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A fun, mostly lighthearted historical romance that is both intelligent and entertaining. The first part of the book has a very Midsummer Night's Dream feel to it that persists to a degree throughout the book. Certainly it retains the feel of a Shakespearean comedy even as things gradually become a touch more serious throughout. The various characters seem at first glance to be somewhat two-dimensional and shallow, though as you get to know them throughout the book you begin to see hidden depths that they hide from those around them, and sometimes that they've been hiding from themselves.

Soulless by Gail Carriger

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations.

First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire--and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

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A fun, lighthearted read that manages to make mortal danger and evil plots seem almost amusing. While the danger does indeed feel real, and one truly worries for the characters at times, the fact that they can still be concerned with things like whether or not a man's cravat it tied fashionably or not takes some of the tension out. Indeed, the constant detailed descriptions of what the characters are wearing and the oh-so-serious manner in which following the dictates of the current trends is regarded help to maintain an amusing tone throughout. It's as though the narrator is constantly poking fun at the characters, but at the same time is quite impressed by the dapper ones, as well as duly horrified by the unfashionable. It's almost a pity there weren't illustrations to go along with the descriptions of the couture.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another...

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon—when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an "outlander"—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

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This is a fairly well-known book, though I wasn't particularly aware of the fact until recently. As such, I'm sure there are any number of reviews done by far more knowledgeable people than me that cover it. Still, I'll jot down a few of my own thoughts about it here, for the sake of writing some sort of review of it.

Waterfall by Lisa Tawn Bergren

What do you do when your knight in shining armor lives, literally, in a different world?

Most American teenagers want a vacation in Italy, but the Betarrini sisters have spent every summer of their lives among the romantic hills with their archaeologist parents. Stuck among the rubble of the medieval castles in rural Tuscany, on yet another hot, dusty archaeological site, Gabi and Lia are bored out of their minds...until Gabi places her hand atop a hand print in an ancient tomb and finds herself in fourteenth-century Italy. And worse yet, in the middle of a fierce battle between knights of two opposing forces.

Suddenly Gabi's summer in Italy is much, much more interesting.




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An enjoyable sweet romance with teen characters that are refreshingly mature about their attraction and don't just get all gushy over one another. Add in the time-travel twist, and a girl that's literally hundreds of years ahead of the time she finds herself in, and this one is well-set to be interesting from page one. The author does a good job of pulling the reader in from the start as well with the way Gabi is written to sound just like any intelligent modern teenage girl you might know. You feel like you know her well from page one, and she's just mature enough that even those of us like me who are well past our teens can relate to her.

Medicus by Ruth Downie

Gaius Petrius Ruso is a divorced and down-on his luck army doctor who has made the rash decision to seek his fortune in an inclement outpost of the Roman Empire, namely Britannia. His arrival in Deva (more commonly known as Chester, England) does little to improve his mood, and after a straight thirty six hour shift at the army hospital, he succumbs to a moment of weakness and rescues an injured slave girl, Tilla, from the hands of her abusive owner.

Now he has a new problem: a slave who won’t talk and can’t cook, and drags trouble in her wake. Before he knows it, Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes working out of the local bar. A few years earlier, after he rescued Emperor Trajan from an earthquake in Antioch, Ruso seemed headed for glory: now he’s living among heathens in a vermin-infested bachelor pad and must summon all his forensic knowledge to find a killer who may be after him next.

Who are the true barbarians, the conquered or the conquerors? It’s up to Ruso—certainly the most likeable sleuth to come out of the Roman Empire—to discover the truth. With a gift for comic timing and historic detail, Ruth Downie has conjured an ancient world as raucous and real as our own.

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An interesting little mystery that pulls you in pretty much from the start. The pacing is fairly casual as the author follows Ruso through his daily activities, and as he tries to avoid getting caught up with the lives of the girls at Merula's bar, but only succeeds in becoming more tangled up in their affairs. It all begins pretty much on page one when he has to examine a corpse that's brought into the hospital - an unidentified female, naked, with all of her hair shorn off. All signs point to foul play, but as no one knows who she is, and all signs are that she was likely a prostitute, no one really cares - except for Ruso, for all that he tries not to care.

Merlin's Harp by Anne Eliot Crompton

When I was yet a very young woman I threw my heart away. Ever since then I have lived heartless, or almost heartless, the way Humans think all Fey live.

Among the towering trees of magical Avalon, where humans dare not tread, lives Niviene, daughter of the Lady of the Lake. Her people, the Fey, are folk of the wood and avoid the violence and greed of man. But the strife of King Arthur's realm threatens even the peace of Avalon. And while Merlin the mage has been training Niviene as his apprentice, he now needs her help to thwart the chaos devouring Camelot. Niviene's special talents must help save a kingdom and discover the treachery of men and the beauty of love...





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A different take on the Arthurian legend, this book tells the story from the viewpoint of Niviene, a fey mage whose mother is a friend to Merlin. Through Merlin, Niviene eventually becomes caught up in human affairs, particularly those of King Arthur. Familiar events play out through the course of the story, but with a different twist to them, the true identities of some of the players, or the relationships between them, having been changed. Through it all, the writing manages to conjure up the mystical feel of the land that is part fantasy and part legend.