Brett Harrison was married to a woman who thought being a rancher's wife would be more glamorous than the reality turned out to be. Baggage he has it. His twin sister is sick of seeing him mope around, so she signs him up for a dating site and sets a coffee date with Melissa "Melly" Walker, also a divorcee. Melly was dazzled by her ex, who turned out to be a liar - so baggage, she has it. Brett agrees to keep the date, mostly because his sister's deception isn't Melly's fault and he comes clean the moment they meet at the coffee shop. They like each other, they share a smoldering kiss. A future date leads to them hitting the sheets and that's when all hell breaks loose. Conflict turns up in the form of an Amazing Coincidence. The problem being that Melly doesn't think it's an Amazing Coincidence so much as a Big Secret. Given that she has trust issues already? Yeah, she freaks out.
This starts out as a very nice read. It's kind of fun to read about an awkward first date (essentially a blind date) in a romance novel where we're often subject to suave heroes who ooze charm and charisma. What didn't work for me had everything do with the conflict in the second half of the story. I get that Melly is upset. I get that she has baggage. But her reaction and her subsequent treatment of Brett struck me as extreme. As in, pull yourself together you stupid, selfish b*tch extreme. Yes, the groundwork of her trust issues is laid well before, but ugh - I intensely began disliking her and no amount of Her Ex Done Her Wrong could wash the bad taste out of my mouth. Frankly I could not for the life of me understand why Brett was so patient with her. I'm sorry, no sex is that good, no matter how long of a drought you've had. Alward has written better and if you're curious to try her work, I recommend following this tag for recommendations.
Final Grade = D
Something About a Cowboy by Sarah M. Anderson is a surprisingly tender and OMG HOTT! story. If I wasn't sitting in front of a fan, I was wiping away tears. It's a real winner.
Six years ago Mack Turner's wife died of cancer. They were high school sweethearts, got married young, had babies young, and now his three sons are grown and worried about Dad. He's 46 and alone on his ranch. Winters get mighty lonely. It's his youngest son who sets him up with a profile on the dating web site and gives Karen Thompson his Dad's number. They talk and agree to meet in Billings (a three hour drive for Mack) for dinner and possibly more.
Karen is divorced and her self-esteem is in the toilet. Her ex was totally incapable of being faithful and Karen just wants to feel desired by a man again. She's not looking for love. She's not looking for marriage. Which is good because neither is Mack. What she wants is for a man to look at her with passion in his eyes - and when Mack gets a load of her in a slinky red dress? Yeah, wish granted!
The complaint I think some readers may have about this story is that it's very steamy and that it's short. It's borderline erotic romance as far as content goes. There's some "getting to know you" stuff to the romance, but honestly that's not why these two characters hook up initially. They're there to get back, figuratively, into the saddle. Naturally when the cold light of morning dawns, Mack finds himself confronted with his past, and needless to say he doesn't handle it well. It's the resolution to his baggage, the emotional heft of it, that made this short novella such a winner for me. A picture perfect afternoon read.
Final Grade = A
On a final note, I think it's worth mentioning how well I thought both authors handled the happy endings in these stories. Again, they're short novellas and I loved that neither one tried to do too much with them. They're basically happy-for-now, but the reader is left with the solid impression that both couples are together, in a relationship, and will, probably, down the road, make the whole thing official. Praise the saints that neither of them crammed in a marriage proposal or pregnant with twins epilogue.
Note: The third book in the continuity series is Anything for a Cowboy by Jenna Bayley Burke (sorry haven't read, no review). You can purchase the stories separately, or in a 3-for-1 edition.
3 comments:
Yay. I like novellas. And I like sexy novellas - shorter erotic romance usually works better for me (seems like it's harder to er, sustain, things like believable plot and character and sexy times in a longer story - not that it can't be done, but it seems to be trickier).
Good to hear there isn't any real link between them. Sarah M. Anderson got me hooked on her stuff with Nobody, but I have been hesitant to pick this one up because I was afraid I would need to read the first rodeo, which doesn't intrigue me at all.
Cleo: I should clarify that the Anderson features Hot Vanilla Sexy Times. Nothing kinky or weird - although yes, I'm aware kinky and weird are in the eye of the beholder ;) Think "hot contemporary" and you'll have a good sense of it.
Erin: I only read the two out of the three - but yeah, I could see no obvious connection outside of the dating web site plot device. You can easily read the Anderson as a stand-alone IMHO.
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