Forever Your Earl, by Eva Leigh

I have had a signed copy of this book waiting on the TBR for a long time–I think I may have gotten it at RWA 2017, which was held in Orlando that year, but honestly, my memory can’t be trusted on this, it may have been even longer than that. As it’s the first in a series and the first the author wrote under this name, it feels very appropriate for SuperWendy’s January TBR Challenge theme: starting over. (see footnote 1)

Eva Leigh is one of Zoë Archer‘s pseudonyms; like Amanda Quick before her, this author has reinvented herself as inspiration and the market have intersected, generally with great success with readers.

Reader beware: a secondary character suffers from severe PTSD (no episodes on page), explicit sex on page.

Blogging with Integrity

I have always described myself as a reader, before most anything else. At different times I’ve been a martial arts student, a horseback rider, a roller skater, a crafter. I have been a mother (of now-adult offspring), and a food service worker, but I have always been a genre reader, even when I have struggled to read.

(I like to say that Paul Féval’s Le Bossu made me a reader before I knew how to read (footnote ¹), that Agatha Christie made me a mystery reader by the time I turned nine, and that finding a copy of E.M. Hull’s The Sheik–just shy of turning eleven–made me a genre romance reader)

I also tend to think things to death. And lately, I have been thinking a lot about how I blog and review (again). And you, lucky people, get to learn what I’ve been thinking.

Maid in Manhattan (2002) (sort of a movie review)

MAID IN MANHATTAN, a Cinderella-with-a-twist romantic comedy, was the April selection for #RomancelandiaMovieNight; originally released in 2002, I had vague, fond-ish memories of this movie, which, alas, were not really warranted.

Reader, beware: the movie is tropetastic. The hero is a Republican politician, and there’s just enough oily smarm in those bits to be off-putting. I believe there’s also a couple of instances of cursing (I curse more in the review itself), but that’s it–there isn’t even any nudity.

Sylvie’s Love (2020) (sort of a movie review)

I watched SYLVIE’S LOVE as the second installment for #RomancelandiaMovieNight, and it really is a perfect fit for genre romance. willaful said, “it’s a Harlequin Presents in movie form”, and really, she ain’t wrong; all the beats of a category romance with luscious music and some amazing acting from pretty much everyone involved.

I think it’s very much worth noting that this movie was made as an independent movie before Amazon acquired distribution rights, from an original screenplay by the director, Eugene Ashe.

Warning: there’s infidelity, and it’s the woman who cheats; there’s also one blatant incident of racism.