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Category Romance Review: Liar’s Moon by Heather Graham

category romance
Liar's Moon by Heather Graham
Rating: three-stars
Published: 1987
Illustrator: Unknown
Imprint or Line: Candlelight Ecstasy Supreme #159
Published by: Dell
Genres: Category Romance, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense
Pages: 286
Format: eBook, Paperback
Buy on: AmazonAbeBooks
Reviewed by: Introvert Reader


Category Romance Review: Liar’s Moon by Heather Graham

SPOILER ALERT ⚠

The Book

Liar’s Moon, a Dell Candlelight Ecstasy Supreme by Heather Graham is an overwrought foray into romantic suspense.

There’s intrigue, murder, and a long-ago love affair between a teenage girl and a much older, close family friend.

Events lead to a dramatic and happy conclusion in this so-so-category romance.

The Characters and the Set-Up

Tracy Kuger has come to New York for her father’s funeral. Who was her father? He was Jesse Kuger, Liar’s Moon’s version of The Beatle’s John Lennon. Only in Liar’s Moon, these Beatles consisted of Jesse, Leif, Tiger, and Sam, and they called themselves The Limelights.

(Incidentally, this was also the name of a string of nightclubs run by entrepreneur and Ecstasy kingpin Peter Gatien. The most (in)famous of the clubs was located in an old, converted church in Manhattan. Lots of memories for me from the mid-1990s! Today it’s a gym. Do techno dance clubs even exist anymore? I’m old, so I don’t know about these things.)

Tracy’s father was inexplicably killed, and his murderer was shot dead by police in a subsequently prompt fashion.

Tracy’s instincts tell her this was not the work of a mere maniacal fan.

Leif Johnson was Jesse’s best friend. Years before the book starts, a “sexually precocious” yet virginal Tracy threw herself at Leif, and he being the mature Rock Star that he was, just couldn’t say no to his BFF’s daughter.

Tragedy and circumstances forced Tracy into exile to Switzerland for seven years. The Tracy who returns from Europe to bury her father is now a thriving and (supposedly) independent businesswoman.

The Plot

The plot may be uncomfortable for readers who dislike significant age differences. Tracy was 17 years old when she “seduced” Leif, who was in his late 30s. But she came on to him, not the other way around! You can’t blame the guy, right?

Complicating matters is that Tracy became pregnant from the fling. As a result, her parents conspired to make Tracy believe her baby died at birth.

Then they shipped the baby off to Leif, who raised his son with his wife Celia, whom he deeply loved. The reader knows from the opening pages about Leif’s happy marriage, even as his dreams are haunted by images of an alluring Tracy in the moonlight.

Leif (with a name like Leif, you’d think he’d be a blond, but no, he’s a dark and hirsute stud) is concerned for Jesse’s children’s safety. He, too, suspects the killing was not an isolated incident. Jesse’s 20-year-old son Jamie is an up-and-coming musician whom Leif has taken under his wing.

And of course, there is Tracy (an independent woman, remember?), who does not need Leif’s role as her–ahem–guardian. But guard her he will, whether she likes it or not.

Leif and Tracy are still hot for one another, and passion rears its purple head. All the while, danger lurks as the pair search for clues to the mystery.

Someone had reason to murder Jesse, who wasn’t the saintly icon everyone painted him as being. Assembled together is a cast of assorted characters, with members of the old band, friends, and family forming a list of potential killers.

In the end, major revelations come to light, the bad guy’s identity is revealed, and he/she receives their punishment.

The lovers get their happy-ever-after ending.

However, the conclusion left me feeling like I’d been forced to swallow a pint of sour, curdled milk.

My Opinion

Liar’s Moon has “sort of” an icky plot with a big age gap between the main characters. But that wasn’t the icky part of it.

What skeeved me out was Leif’s role as the best friend of Tracy’s father. He was practically an uncle to Jesse’s kids.

Even worse is how Leif rides roughshod over Tracy. He confronts her with the truth about their “dead” baby in a sadistically cruel manner. Leif dismisses Tracy’s pain over the perceived loss, then forcefully demands Tracy be his wife.

Finally, Leif introduces Tracy to her own child as the boy’s new stepmother. A cheerful epilogue doesn’t make up for Leif’s atrocious behavior.

Final Analysis of The Book

Liar’s Moon was an angsty read, for sure. Regardless, the unheroic hero’s faults were too numerous to overlook. I mean, how could Graham name the main male character Leif and not make him blond? Unforgivable.

Still, Heather Graham is a solid author, even when writing for a restrictive category line. I can’t blame her for trying.

Liar’s Moon is an alright story that could have been better if the hero hadn’t been such a pompous and domineering jerk.

2.95 Stars

Rating Report Card
Plot
3.5
Characters
2.5
Writing
3
Chemistry
3
Fun Factor
2.5
Cover
4
Overall: 3.1

Synopsis:

She’d been a wild teenager willing to risk anything for revenge. But when she seduced Leif Johnston, she hadn’t counted on falling in love…hadn’t believed her family would intervene and sweep her off to Switzerland.

Seven years later, Tracy Kuger was a successful, independent woman. But her determination to find her father’s killer would carry her right back into New York’s deceiving limelight…into the treacherous bosom of her powerful family…into Leif’s lean, hungry arms. Passion and peril bound them together even as doubts and dangerous secrets tore them apart.

Tormented by the past, could Tracy face the truth and embrace the future—a love born under a liar’s moon?

LIAR’S MOON by HEATHER GRAHAM
the kings pleasure

Historical Romance Review: The King’s Pleasure by Shannon Drake

historical romance review
The King's Pleasure by Shannon Drake, Heather Graham
Rating: four-stars
Published: 1996
Illustrator: Franco Accornero
Book Series: Zebra Historical Romance
Published by: Kensington
Genres: Historical Romance, Medieval Romance
Pages: 382
Format: Audiobook, eBook, Paperback
Buy on: AmazonAbeBooks
Reviewed by: Introvert Reader


Historical Romance Review: The King’s Pleasure by Shannon Drake

MILD SPOILERS 😉

The Book

Shannon Drake‘s (aka Heather Graham) The King’s Pleasure is set amid the intense medieval backdrop of the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death. It’s a solid romance in a historical age that always grips my attention.

theking'spleasurecover

Captive of The King

The story begins with a prologue. The heroine, Danielle, is hiding from her husband in an inn as he searches for her. He’s under the impression that she’s there to have a tryst with a fellow Frenchman. Her husband is a Scottish knight, Adrien MacLachlan, who’s pledged to the English King. Danielle is not there to have an assignation with another man. However, she is there against her husband and his King’s wishes.

Adrien confronts Danielle, and the two have a fiery argument that ends in them making love. They look back at the stormy past that preceded this encounter.

Thus we’re flung back nineteen years prior. King Edward III of England is laying siege to Aville in France. The castle is defended by the resident Countess Lenore and her retinue. A young page, our hero, Adrien, at age 10, discovers a weak point in the walls. This allows the English King to breach it. King Edward takes triumphant control of the castle. He also takes the Countess as his captive back to England after enjoying a few nights of passion with her.

The brief yet intense affair culminates in a pregnancy. Lenore is returned to France, along with their daughter Danielle, as Edward’s vassal. Danielle grows to be more beautiful than her mother. When her mother dies years later, she is made the King’s ward and placed under his absolute control.

Torn between two worlds, the temperamental and fiercely independent Danielle finds it difficult to adjust.

Wed By the King’s Command

As time passes, events form a path to our protagonists’ destinies. On several occasions, Danielle meets Adrien, now fully grown and made a knight. Danielle finds him arrogant and unlikeable. Dislike turns into hatred when she discovers it was he who enabled Edward to take her beloved home. Adrien thinks Danielle is shrewish and detestable.

The King plans to give Danielle’s hand in marriage to Adrien in gratitude for all of Adrien’s victories in battle. Adrien, on the other hand, would prefer Lady Joanna, the daughter of an Earl.

The onset of the Bubonic Plague will change things drastically. Both Danielle and Joanna suffer from the horrific disease, although only one of them makes it out alive.

Danielle finds herself an unwilling pawn in the game of royalty. She is forced to obey the King’s order to marry her enemy Adrien MacLachlan. Danielle hates him for political and personal reasons and vows she always will. While Danielle believes she has a duty to serve the French King, how can she do so? Especially now that she’s bound to a man under service to the English crown?

Intrigue, betrayal, passion, and romance mark the rest of the book. Danielle and Adrien are a fiery combination despite their antagonism toward each other (or, more likely, because of it). Their love-making is explosive. How can they reconcile their differences while war rages on, both literally and figuratively, within their hearts?

Final Analysis of The King’s Pleasure

As I always find when reading medieval romances I enjoy, it’s the history that draws me in. I appreciated the attention to detail and authenticity of the time period. Shannon Drake’s writing is strong. She excels in writing love scenes. The road to getting the actual love was a rocky one, however. Danielle and Adrien enjoy fighting for fighting’s sake. It seemed to act as a sexual stimulant for the two!

I also could have done without Adrien’s back story of his engagement to another woman. Fortunately, he didn’t dwell over much on the loss of his first love, as Shannon Drake/ Heather Graham has made her heroes do in the other books.

Besides being stubborn and misguided, Danielle and Adrien were well-matched, and their HEA was believable. I can imagine them spending many years within their castle walls arguing and then quickly patching matters up for wild make-up sex.

4.24 Stars

Rating Report Card
Plot
4
Characters
4
Writing
4.5
Chemistry
4.5
Fun Factor
4
Cover
4.5
Overall: 4.3

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of Tomorrow the Glory comes a captivating new novel that sweeps from Scotland’s untamed highlands to the Tower of London and war-torn France. Here is the powerful story of two people destined to love in a divided land.

Danielle D’Aville, the ward of Edward III, was sworn to obey the King’s order to marry her enemy Adrien MacLachlan, the legendary Scot who masterminded the fall of Danielle’s beloved home, Aville. Suddenly she was the arrogant knight’s reluctant wife, pledged to a marriage neither desired. But swept off to his castle in the Scottish highlands, and into his strong embrace, Danielle was soon possessed by a raging passion for the husband she had vowed to despise.

The King’s Pleasure by Shannon Drake