OH WHERE, OH WHERE HAS ANNE N. REISSER GONE?

Oh HOW Prolific Anne N. Reisser was...back when A CANDLELIGHT ECSTASY ROMANCE competed, almost head-to-head with the likes of Harlequin Romance and Silhouette. 

Recently my Award Winning Daughter, gifted author Kat Holmes and I moved. Moving is always stressful, but it also gives you a chance to go through books you have collected along the way.

Anne N. Reisser is one such author from the 1980's I have savored, collected, read, and reread...but she disappeared after six powerful stories...

Anne's career began with A CANDLELIGHT ECSTASY ROMANCE # 20


THE FACE OF LOVE...This brilliant tale of bitterness combined with artistic magic calls me back to read it so often I had to replaced my mass edition copy three times so far. (My final purchase is a compilation of this and one of Ms. Reisser's later tales. I'll talk about that one later.)

Andrea is a brilliant artist, and the daughter of a man so evil you will love hating him...but he's not the only one you'll hate. Breck Carlson, new boss at Andrea's dad's place of employment has caught Daddyo embezzling...he's also caught sight of Andrea.

I LOVE this book. You are going to weep, cheer, and applaud Andrea, while at the same time hating, cursing, and wanting to kick Breck where his sun don't shine! 

FIVE STARS...easily for this Anne N. Reisser tale.

Ms. Reisser's second book, number #24 from A Candlelight Ecstasy Romance is THE CAPTIVE LOVE.

I have to admit this is NOT one of my favorites. How would you feel if you're an adult whose rich daddy has decided he doesn't like the path you've chooses...okay it's dangerous, but to curtail your actions, he convinces a rancher from way out yonder, you're a spoiled little girl misbehaving badly...so needs to be kidnapped and held hostage way out yonder..oh and given a blistering spanking when you dare protest?

Definitely not my favorite, but it is so well written you DO feel Colby Duncan's rage at such unhanded treatment, and plots to get back at her father for countering her life plans.

Therefore I can only give this book FOUR STARS...which is STILL pretty good.

#33 gives us DECEPTIVE LOVE...and OH MY GOD...As much as I love THE FACE OF LOVE, I love this one even more.. Keri Dalton is a powerful, beautiful, brilliant woman who types faster than the speed of light, can beat an office into efficiency without breaking a sweat, but she cannot evade a man from her past bent on dragging her to the altar whether she wants to be dragged. She also cannot evade her new boss who sees through the matronly disguise she dons to protect herself from office Lotharios, and that man from her past...who just happens to now be the fiancee of her new boss's sister.

You will fall head over heels in love with Keri, and cheer her on when she takes on the arrogant office witch who has unrequited designs on the boss, and will not tolerate competition calmly and stand in her corner when her boss's spoiled rotten sister sets out to destroy her at all costs!.

ANOTHER FIVE STAR BOOK

Moving Right Along, we have # 54 ALL'S FAIR

As a woman who has always had a "Little Girl Voice" I was immediately drawn to Morgain McMichaels. Small, seemingly child like she's found tinkering with an airplane her gender hidden by the overalls of a mechanic, she's arrogantly reamed out by the tall panther like Gareth Hammond.

Gareth is ticked this boy-mechanic is taking too long, in his opinion, to get this charter plane ready for one of the pilots to whisk Gareth off to the wilds out there and the sight of his company's newest construction..

Problem...at least for Gareth...Morgain IS not just the not-so-much a boy mechanic, she's also very much his pilot...a COMMERCIAL pilot on vacation and temporary assignment at her brother's charter plane company.

She may LOOK like a child, but the Morgain packs a powerful punch in her petite frame...she can also put any of the male pilots to shame with her almost supernatural flying skills.

How will Gareth deal with this dynamo, especially when the life of one of his crew up their in the wilds depends on her talents in navigating against all odds through a killer storm no one else could make it through?

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book, and one I eagerly give FIVE STARS TOO.

Number 76, COME LOVE, CALL MY NAME, is another one of my absolute Anne N. Reisser favorites.


Raine Fisher travels the world to the worst places imaginable creating memorable art work the world covets for its stark realism and depths of emotions. Coming home after a long sojourn, Raine literally bumps into needy mother of one Nick Hunter, wealthy and jaded casino hotel owner Nick Hunter.

Postponing her trip home to those who love her, Raine, dressed like the seasoned traveller into the underbelly of the world she is, arrives as Nick's mother's guest at his high class establishment where sparks, suspicion and jealousy are unleashed. Nick suspects Raine is a gold digger...Raine is amused. Nick's current girlfriend, his torch singer, has no plans of ever being replaced, but isn't stupid enough to want any competition without ten light years of Nick....Raine is amused and in a slick play on words, gives him to the torch singer on a flowery silver platter.

Again I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book...and this is also my daughter Kat's favorite of my Anne N. Reisser's...Will you be surprised to learn I am again giving THIS book


FIVE STARS? Didn't think so.


Last, but not least is #81 is

BY LOVE BETRAYED...



I feel about this one much the way I feel about THE CAPTIVE LOVE. Deborah McLeod met him far from the world this heiress grew up in...far from the world that KNEW her as an heiress...Stewart Grainger...but HIS father, not recognizing the heiress, had other plans (Another heiress) for his son...plans that did not include a nobody...with the cruelty he'd honed, Stewart Grainger's dad did everything to smash this relationship and Deborah to smithereens.

Years later the Grainger's courting business with Deborah's grandfather find instead an angry grandfather bent on destroying the ones who tore his granddaughter's soul apart...and he has the power to do so. But for Stewart, learning the truth at last about his father's evil, care nothing about the destruction of their company...not once he's seen all his father's perfidy cost him.

Not one of my favorites, but BY LOVE BETRAYED is no less powerful as any of the other Anne N. Reisser books.

So I give ANOTHER FOUR STARS.

The publishing world was smart. One of the saddest moments for me was the demise of A CANDLELIGHT ECSTASY ROMANCE. I'd started collecting them from their inception, and hated to see them end...BUT Anne N. Reisser's books were reintroduced to another batch of fans in the form of compilations...



For instance...Her first book, THE FACE OF LOVE was rereleased by Leisure Romance in 1994 as the second offering, with Noelle Berry McCue in Valentine Sampler. 

But Leisure Romance didn't stop there. Realizing what a gifted author Anne N. Reisser is, they came out with two more compilations, but this time calling them THE BEST OF ANNE N.REISSER.

We have DECEPTIVE LOVE and BY LOVE BETRAYED in one THE BEST OF


And in the second one we have ALL, FAIR and COME LOVE, CALL MY NAME.

OMG...while researching for this posting I found another Anne N. Reisser I didn't know existed.

Released in January 1984, from another new romance publisher no longer with us, Loveswept we have their # 28

Love, Catch a Wild Bird...so now I have some hunting to do...find this book, read it, and come back and let you all know what I think. Keep your fingers crossed I can find it. Know that if I do, it will join all the other Anne N. Reissers in my permanent collection of books I will NEVER part with.