Inkmarks On Empty Dreams

  Valerie Wilde is the Madam of The Crimson Manor , a luxuriant brothel, retreated at the age of 31 she behaves more like a human resources recruiter, her girls leave the brothel to be some count’s kept woman and she needs to find a new girl instead of Molly, the first of her recruits. Valerie shares features like the need for love, the disbelief in it with Zola’s „Nana” and Dumas fils's „Camille-Lady of the Camelias” , but she resides the brothel activity and yet she’s free, she’s not a kept woman, a courtesan of affairs that taunts with men’s richness or maybe hunted down by a disease and her attraction to women. „Love ...the word felt strange to he r. All the life she'd known, she'd been amongst the women of a house, and a few men had almost claimed her affections in the many years since she began as a lady of the night. But each time a suitor drew close, she ran. The life they offered looked pale and shabby compared to the one she knew. To be kept in some pretty house w...

What was really fascinating within the story, were the opposites attract kind of characters and  also, the reasons how they were accidentally brought together  : Professor Nicole Hathaway’s book promotion tour and  because she needed an assistant to travel with all over the world. Actually, she chased away the rest of the assistants, because she didn’t want them. Lilly’s uncle brought them to work together as he knew Lily needed a break from the spotlight of the TV lawyer that chased her family’s dark past and that Nicole needed support for her voyage. Their different characters brought up sparks at their first meeting, but Lily landed in Nicole’s home and somehow having tea with her mother and sister was right. They develop a friendship that unavoidable turns into a wild attraction. Yet, until they realized they truly love each other, there’s a full amount of adventure and especially that they believe the other’s straight.  Lilly respects Nicole and hides her past and she’s afraid of ...

„The moon came out in an eerie blue, almost as if it were painted by the snow.” „Painted Moon”  appears an easy read, but it has it’s depths, especially in Jackie’s relationship with her mother and her eagerness to love, I mean, to be really in love and loved back, like in the fairytales, like in her mother’s art! The title is suggestive! I expected a painter, but not an architect. They have in common the passion for beauty and the passion for each other. It’s Thanksgiving and Jackie Frakes needs to take a break from her relationship with Parker for whom she moved across the country and found a job as an architect intern at a big firm. Unfortunately, her MG Sports Car (I din’t enjoyed the use of this althrough the story – it was a bit of overuse)couldn’t handle the power of a snow storm. Here’s where Leah Beck comes to the rescue, together with her dog. She hosts Jackie for a couple of days and they don’t really connect at first beeing so different, yet there’s a spark of passion that ...