Customer Reviews

Falling Stars (Topaz Historical Romances)

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This is my third book I have read from Anita Mills. I've read Autumn Rain, Bittersweet and Falling Stars. I plan to read all of her books. Falling Stars was a really exciting book to read because of its adventure, dark betrayal, passion, sensuality and romance. I also love the time in the 1800's I feel like I'm taken back in times when I'm reading her books. Please Thank Anita Mills for me. I love her style of writing and I hope she is still writing new books because I want to read them all. Sincerly, Rita De Leon

You know there is trouble, in a romance book, when by page 250 the two leading players have not had a meaningful scene!

Anita Mills wanted desperately to establish Katherine Winstead as "a coming into her own" type heroine -- Katherine was growing stronger with each dreary episode in her dismal life! Mills' strategy? By the end of the book, the reader would look upon this fragile heroine as "Katherine the Great!"

However, this scheme failed! Katherine's "doormat" attitude grew tiring -- an attitude that allowed everyone and their dog to run over her - even the Russian servants were impertinent! Good heavens, Katherine may be a stranger to Russia, but she is a daughter of the upper English class! This English lady is NOT a stranger to the aristocratic viewpoint! Katherine should have screamed from the roof tops at such impertinent behavior! Her predetermined attitude: "Guess what, I'm the almighty countess around here and it's my way, or the highway!" Language barriers stand aside!

And what happened to Katherine's only friend -- the little Russian maid, Maria? After all, Maria aided Katherine's great escape from the Volsky estate, then disappeared completely from the story -- banished forever in the writer's inkwell! Is this known as a loose end?

Anita Mills is a truly gifted writer, and she can carry her reader on a journey. In FALLING STARS, the author presents the magnitude of nineteenth century Russia. Mills depicts the severity of existence and thrusts it at her reader. Sadly, this was not enough, for Mills' story is choppy, farfetched, and CERTAINLY not romantic!

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

What is this? A book I read 1,000 year ago, and yet I still remember fondly? What I remember liking about this book is precisely what other reviewers hate it for - its pacing. I like that the arc of Katherine Winstead's life only intersects the life of her eventual husband's in the last third of the book. I like that Katherine was her own person, first and foremost, making her own choices, and her own mistakes, out of her own personal insecurities and limited options... this is HER story, not Townsend's. If you want a book in which the protagonist and male lead fall into the sack in the first chapter, might I suggest Stephanie Laurens? But if you appreciate that two obviously unsuitable people, evolve on their own terms, responding to the individual stimuli in their own lives, and then meet again at precisely the point when they need and can SEE each other as they have become, then this might be one for you. I for one am glad that they didn't recognize each other in the first 2 chapters - when the vain, shallow, empty Bellamy Townsend was not worthy of her! His transformation into a man who can see past his own genitals into her "pluck-to-the-backbone" character is what redeems him as hero material. I found this an unusually safisfying, long-lingering romance that many years later I still remember fondly.

I have read this book at least 3 times over the years, and I never get tired of it. It's not your typical romance novel, where the leading lady is usually quite beautiful with a body to match and every man who sees her falls madly in lust. I thought this book was incredibly charming. The leading lady and leading man go through many trials together and in doing so learn the true nature of one another. I can't say enough about this book it is a must read!

Anita Mills again creates wonderful, real characters in this unusual story. Kate is nothing like the typical heroine of this genre, and Bell is almost too real! He may have a perfect face, but it is his rich array of faults that make you love him! Anita, when will we find out who finally catches Leighton?