Mini-Reviews: Dream Factories

I like traveling...once I get where I want to go.  It's the getting there that tends to be annoying, although the one solid benefit I've discovered over the years to getting on an airplane is Airplane Reading.  I am a champ for reading on airplanes and my recent trip back to the American Midwest (work conference) gave me the opportunity to plow through some books.  That means it's time for another round of Wendy's patented mini-reviews.

The Bull Rider's Cowgirl by April Arrington was a completely random pick off my Kindle.  The thought process went something like this "I haven't read a Harlequin American in a while..." Albeit this book was released under the rebranded "Western Romance" banner that Harlequin put out to pasture in 2018.

This is the third book in the Men of Raintree Ranch series and while past characters do show up, it stands alone just fine.  Colt Mead is a bull rider clawing his way up the ranks and the playboy of the circuit.  Jen Taylor is a barrel racer with ambitions as wide as the Grand Canyon, determined to make something of herself and show all those naysayers back home in the nothing small town where she grew up.  She's mightily attracted to Colt, they shared a kiss, and naturally Colt pushed her away - because while's he's attracted to her that's what guys like this always seem to do.  This incident has made Jen prickly around him, until a tragedy brings them together.

Colt's father and stepmother die in an accident leaving him the guardian to his 9-year-old half-sister.  Jen can't say no to a friend, so takes time away from the circuit to help Colt out in his hour of need.  As Colt reconnects with his sister he realizes that his drifter lifestyle traveling the rodeo circuit ain't all it's cracked up to be.

The world-building is solid and it was an interesting spin to have Colt come from a cold fish wealthy family who chucked it all to be his own man (his father is a piece of work, naturally). Jen is extremely relatable, a wrong-side of the tracks kind of girl that everyone wrote off.  She's going to work hard, bust her butt, and show all those jerks back home!  And Arrington, bless her heart, writes the child characters in the book like kids. They read authentic and not like plot moppets.

Here's the problem, it's one of those books where the heroine chucks aside all her dreams once the hero tells her he loves her.  That's not an automatic nope for me, but I have caveats: 1) It has to be the heroine's idea and 2) The hero damn sure better recognize exactly what the heroine is giving up.  And that doesn't happen here.  Colt's all like is that what you really want, stay me with me, blah blah blah.  To say he needles Jen is overstating it, but he pleads and protests a little too much.  And of course all those dreams the heroine had at the start of the story?  Suddenly don't seem to matter so much anymore.  Sigh.

Final Grade = D+

I love the way Loren D. Estleman writes about the city of Detroit, one of the great all-time settings for crime novels. City Walls is the 31st book to feature Amos Walker, world-weary old-school PI and it delivered exactly what I wanted - snappy writing, Detroit shenanigans, and Amos playing catch-up to piece it all together.

This time out Amos is hired by Emmett Yale, a muckity-muck in the electric car industry to look into the "murder" of his useless stepson.  Amos knows Detroit like the back of his hand, frankly the murder looks and smells like a totally random, senseless killing.  But Yale thinks one of his former employees and the stepson were mixed up in an insider trading scheme and the "random killing" was actually a hit.  Amos has doubts, but takes the case anyway (because of course...) and is soon mixed up with Yale's head of security and the staff at a dying airfield, including a sexy aviatrix, an aging barnstormer and a surly maintenance man.  

When it comes to turning a phrase Estleman is one of the best in the business and as always I was sucked into the writing and world-building from the jump (the story opens in Cleveland, which was serendipitous since that's where my work conference was!) .  Unfortunately the whole thing doesn't tie together as neatly as I would have liked.  Look, sometimes a coincidence truly is a coincidence and people will exploit those coincidences for their own gain.  Doesn't mean I want that in my crime fiction reading. I like tidy, all wrapped up in a bow, where all the pieces fit neatly together.  I had a good time reading this, I enjoyed what I always enjoy about books in this series, but I wanted a bit more oomph in the mystery.

Final Grade = B-