Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful love story
Review: I love this book and highly recommend to everyone. Both heroine and hero are intelligent and lovable. Especially hero's decision for love is very touching. I've read Ms. Ranney's other books, "My Beloved" and "Upon a Wicked Time", and loved them as well. But "After the Kiss" is the best of three. I think Ms. Ranney always tries to create unusual story and unique characters and succeed it. She is great. Please just read.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet love story and terrific sensuality
Review: Karen Ranney has carefully sculpted a gentle love story about two lonely souls who are destined for each other. I have read all of Ms. Ranney's books and this is the best by far. Margaret, a woman widowed by a violent fire, seeks to enrich her meager living by selling a rare book of erotic to a titled gentleman. In the process, she meets a stranger - a lonely man who believes he must mary an heiress to save his family's fortune.The characters are well drawn - even the secondary ones. The main characters are both lovable and real. There is a sense of sweet sexuality that pervades the book, even while the hero and heroine are getting to know each other and overcoming the problems in their relationship. If you are a fan of Christina Dodd, Stephanie Laurens or Julia Quinn, I highly recommend this book. It is a sweet and satisfying read.
Rating:
Summary: Wow, what a fantasy
Review: Karen Ranney has created the perfect hero in Michael Hawthorne, Earl of Montraine. Margaret Esterly, a young woman widowed and poverty stricken following a fire which destroyed her bookstore, has managed to save only three volumes of rare erotica. She must sell them to survive. While bringing the first of them to a wealthy earl, she and Montraine meet accidentally. Amidst their love story lurks a mystery. The writing is intelligent and lyrical, the love scenes lushly erotic, the mystery deftly woven through the plot. A wonderful, can't put it down read.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that compelling
Review: That was my first book of Karen Ranny. I found it quite interesting but not very absorbing or a must-read book. I bought the book because I want to get to know the writing styles of as many romance authors as possible and while I didn't find it very compelling I didn't regret reading it. Read the lowesting ratings first, i.e., combine the reviews of the reader from AUSTIN, TX USA and the one from WEST HILLS, CA, you will get an overall and objective picture of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: There is more to 19th Century Britain than the use of carriages and lack of electricity. The author tosses away cultural mores with nary a second thought, and that was ultimately too distracting for me. The writing strove to be profound and the effort put into it was noticeable throughout, where a well crafted novel simply flows. All this could have been forgiven had I found the protagonists more likeable, but to me, they were pathetically driven by their lust with nothing of substance in their characters to make them appealing figures. I couldn't see why they should be drawn to one another or us to them. It ultimately resulted in a lot of sex scenes that chronicled impressive gymnastics which this reader, at least, viewed with detachment. I reread the other reviews to see if I had misremembered them at the time that I ordered the book. Obviously, I saw things very differently.
Rating:
Summary: After the Kiss
Review: This book is Wonderful! I didn't want to put it down. When I had to, I couldn't wait to get back to it. I, too, am in love with the hero, Michael. He is every woman's dream. The heroine, was very sweet, but also independent. I throughly enjoyed their interaction. I also liked the fact that neither one was really trying to fight their attraction to eachother. This is the first novel I've read by Karen Ranney. I will be reading more by her in the future!
Rating:
Summary: Very Romantic! A must read!
Review: This is the first book I have read by Karen Ranney and was very pleasantly surprised. It was a little different than a lot of historical romances where the hero and the heroine don't get a long for 3/4 of the book. Michael liked Margaret from the very beginning and treated her with such tenderness, as she did him. I loved the scene with the blue ribbon! I also enjoyed their conversations where they just got to know each other and what the other thought about things and what they liked. They were so interested in each other and it was a very enjoyable read. I have since been on Amazon looking for some of her other books to read. I will add her to my list of favorite authors like Julia London and Julia Quinn and watch for her new releases also. Read the book. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: WOW! So Sensual It Borders on Erotic
Review: This is what you look for when you you imagine romance! A definite up all night kind of book! Warning - do not start at night if you must work the next day! Margaret Esterly is an impoverished widow who lost her husband to a fire two years prior. The only things she has of value are three Journal's that border on the erotic. She has traveled to London to sell one and after the sale she wanders into the garden to catch a glimpse of a masked ball. What she encounters is a man so captivating that she finds herself wanting to play dangerously - just once - and kiss him. If not for an interruption at that final moment she would have gotten her wish, instead she took flight! Michael Hawthorne, Earl of Montraine, and master codemaster, finds himself in the garden of his friend contemplating what heiress he should seek for a wife to bolster his quickly dwindling finances. He was just as entranced by Margaret as she of him and spent the next couple of weeks trying to find out more about the mysterious woman he had met. His brain told him he had to wed an heiress, but who was this woman who haunted his every waking moment? Some weeks later Margaret contacted, the Earl's friend to sell another journal, only this time, having been tipped off by his friend that she was coming, the Earl was waiting to receive her in the study. He bargains with her for just "one kiss". What follows is an absolutely fascinating walk of sensual delight that the reader will cherish and want to re-read again and again. This is a book not to be missed! I absolutely loved it in spite of the fact that I will pay for my lack of sleep! Definite keeper!!!
Rating:
Summary: Sensual, with the added bonus of a mystery
Review: This romance is a bit outside the common. It is set just after the Regency, but with the hero a most unusual war hero - a Code Master. There is a code to be broken in the story -- the code is the mystery of Margaret, a woman who is the puzzle wrapped in an engima. (A word of warning - the reader should not, as I did, waste time trying to break a code in the passages that begin each chapter - the code appears off stage, as it were.) The mystery is not in who the villain is, but what he did. If the incredibly sensual love scenes had not kept me reading, I would surely have kept turning the pages to discover what treason had been done.
Rating:
Summary: SLOW BURN...
Review: This was my first novel by Karen Ranney. Her writing syle "savors" every word. She doesn't waste time telling the reader things you can figure out on your own. She saves the detail for when the reader wants it the most...for the sex. The story starts out with a fire that changes Margaret's life. Yet the flames keep erupting from the pages as her relationship with Michael simmers, sizzles, and boils...even to the last word. I love Margaret's "comfortable with myself" attitude. I love Michael's fascination with Margaret. I especially love how their relationship continually moves forward despite outside conflict. Sensuality = 10. Sexuality = 10. Burn, baby, burn...
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