A feast of spicy historical romances

By Mary Balogh
Berkley, $5.99

ISBN 0425158624

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

Mary Balogh pushes the envelope in "Silent Melody" with a deaf heroine living in mid-eighteenth-century London.

Lady Emily Marlowe has been deaf since age four. Sister-in-law to the Duke of Harndon, she has been in love with the Duke's brother, Ashley Kendrick, since coming to live with her sister.

Ashley never talks down to her, and they even have their own special sign language. Ashley goes away to seek his fortune in India. Emmy grows up. When Ashley returns, broken in spirit, she uses her body to heal him. But when he offers marriage in reparation for her virginity, she refuses. If she can't have his love, she doesn't want him at all.

Balogh tackles the sensitive issue of deafness with a deftness that has been her trademark. It would have been easy for Emmy to give in to Ashley's marriage proposal, but Balogh illustrates that having a handicap doesn't make one in need of charity.

By Elizabeth Boyle
Dell, $5.50

ISBN 0440224128

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

It is always a pleasure to read of a heroine with a dual identity. In Elizabeth Boyle's "Brazen Angel", Lady Sophia is, by day, a sickly young woman whose pale skin has never seen the kiss of the sun. By night she is the notorious Brazen Angel who drugs and robs dangerous men by the light of the moon. Unfortunately for the Brazen Angel, she gets in the way of Giles Corliss, Marquess of Trahern and -- surprise -- Lady Sophia's fiancee. Giles has something of a dual identity himself, having worked as an agent for the Foreign Ministry for years. He has been charged with unmasking the Angel. He has also been charged to marry Sophia. Either way Giles is in for some amusing frustration as both women outwit him at every turn.

Reminiscent of Julie Garwood's "Guardian Angel," this fluid story will appeal for much the same reason. Although the plot has some humor, this is a dark, intense story with many subplots and undercurrents.

By Evelyn Richardson
Signet, $5.50

ISBN 0451192052

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

In Evelyn Richardson's "My Wayward Lady", Adrian Julius, Marquess of Kidderham has been engaged since childhood to Alicia De Villiers, a diamond of the first water but, alas for Adrian, a bore. Adrian remains duty bound until he meets Lady Harriet Fareham.

In London to see her sister married, Harriet is not interested in society. To keep herself occupied, she begins teaching at the notorious Temple of Venus, where she and Adrian first met. When Adrian begins attending her class regularly she begins to see him as he truly is; unfortunately, the specter of his fiancee dogs them.

Author Evelyn Richardson, a librarian, is meticulous in her details, but she doesn't stint on developing the relationship. Harriet is a heroine to be proud of, and Adrian grows substantially within the course of the novel. The novel is fast paced and ultimately satisfying.

By Elaine Coffman
Fawcett, $10

ISBN 0449000079

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

Fawcett's second paperback-sized hardcover should be as successful as the first. Elaine Coffman's nineteenth-century historical "Someone Like You" features a hero and heroine so deeply wounded that it takes the entire novel for them to believe they are worthy of love.

Susannah spent her first nine years in a New Orleans brothel. She knows all there is to know about sex and wants nothing to do with it. Reed had the best education money could buy, but it wasn't enough to save his wife from dying in childbed fever. He turns his back on the medical training he loved so well, his parents who love him dearly, and he wanders aimlessly, until the day he drifts into Bluebonnet, Texas. In the space of a few short hours, Reed is on the verge of being lynched by a mob -- Bluebonnet doesn't much like strangers. Fortunately, Susannah's Aunt Violette likes what she sees and hires him as a handyman. The healing begins for all.

Coffman knows how to move a story along, and Susannah and Reed's conflicts hook the reader from the first.

By Sandra Marton
Harlequin Presents #1899, $3.50

ISBN 0373118996

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

It takes a master to recycle what should have been an old plot and make it new again. Sandra Marton is just such an author. "The Second Mrs. Adams" should have been about an evil twin and the amnesiac good twin who takes her place. While amnesia does play an important role here, there are no evil twins, multiple personalities or other devices. Instead when Joanna Adams wakes up with no memory, she reverts to her true personality -- and falls in love anew with her husband. Marton is one of the few American authors in the Presents line with over 30 titles to her credit.

By Kate Freiman
Silhouette Special Edition #1120, $3.99

ISBN 0373241208

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

Kate Freiman also gives us a little something out of the ordinary in "Mother Nature's Hidden Agenda." For a change it is the man who is desperate for a commitment while the woman dissembles. Lily Davis thinks she has it all, knowing that for a woman in the '90s, having it all means either a career or family, not both. She chose career; family has never been her strong suit.

Blake Sommers wants to change all that. From the moment she sets foot on his farm, he knows she is something special. Convincing her to stay with him and abandon her job become a full-time occupation until he realizes that he is asking her to make a choice he wouldn't make himself.

Freiman has four books to her credit. She's definitely one to watch.