The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Berkley, 2015, first book in The Southern Belle Book Club series (that didn't survive past this book and one novella), out of print, available in digital
Why Was it In Wendy's TBR?: I've read and liked Jump's books in the past. My print copy isn't autographed (so I didn't get it at a conference) and looks pristine, which means either I bought it new or the publisher sent it to me 🤷♀️
The Review: I zipped through this book in roughly 24 hours but in all honesty it's because I started skimming chunks of it. It's not bad per se, it's just...flat. Very flat. I kept thinking this would have been a stronger romance had a lot of the single title series fluff been dispatched and the author wrote this story for Harlequin Special Edition instead.
Elizabeth Palmer is finally shooting her shot. A Jersey girl, she was raised by a single mother who was big on dreams but short on practicality. Her childhood was being shuttled from one dreary "new" apartment to the next and taking over paying the bills by age 8. Naturally this childhood had Elizabeth going in the complete opposite direction - she's exceedingly practical. She has a boring job as a bookkeeper and a boyfriend who just threw her over for one of their neighbors. When her boss takes away the one part of her job she doesn't hate (writing the company newsletter) she realizes life is passing her by. After hundreds of rejections she finally gets a freelance gig to write an article for a horse magazine. Her subject is Hunter McCoy, a quarter horse breeder whose ranch had fallen on hard times but is slowly rising from the ashes. His aunt tells Elizabeth to come on down to Georgia, she thinks the publicity will be great! Hunter though, he takes one look at Elizabeth in her slacks and silky blouse and hates the idea.
Hunter is a hero who is all about the work. Yes, the ranch was in serious trouble - his father having almost run it into the ground. The ranch is in Hunter's blood, his family having lived on the land for generations and his grandfather starting the horse breeding operation. That's not the only reason Hunter is all about work though. No, he's a man still struggling after a tragedy claimed the life of his fiancée two years ago, and naturally he's got a heaping dose of guilt over that. He takes one look at Elizabeth and falls back into the same bad habits - which is he keeps trying to push her away. Little does he know, Elizabeth needs this interview, she needs this job, and no surly cowboy is going to deter her from living her dreams.
We all know what happens next. A quick day-trip turns into several thanks to a bad storm (that naturally lands Elizabeth staying in Hunter's sprawling ranch house) and Hunter's uncooperative attitude. These two are drawn to each other immediately but resist: Hunter because baggage and Elizabeth because this is her first freelance gig and she's not about to fall into bed with her subject. Talk about unprofessional!
Surrounding our couple are a myriad of secondary characters there to prime the series pump: the group of women who are members of the The Southern Belle Book Club who meet in the small, local bookstore. Hunter's aunt Barbara Jean, who raised him and his sister after their mother died, a ranch hand, Carlos, sweet on Barbara Jean, and Hunter's 18-year-old sister, Amberlee, who wants to be a horse trainer but has severe asthma triggered by horses and stamps her foot a lot because she's not a baby anymore and she's tired of being treated like one! (Look, it's never good when a series is killed before it's finished but I can't say I'm sad that Amberlee never got her own romance because Good Lord I wanted to smack her every time she was on page).
The world building is good and not all the secondary characters are duds, so what's the problem? Well, the romance. Hunter and Elizabeth are just so....flat. They never feel fully realized. They never transcended the page for me. Their back stories are certainly interesting but I never really got how they fell in love other than there was an attraction right away that they both were determined to ignore. It's Insta-Lust that turns into Insta-Love. As a couple they're just both sorta....there.
It's the kind of book I'd DNF out of boredom, not because I'm vehemently hating it. In the end I couldn't help thinking that if the series "stuff" would have been dispatched, if more time had been spent in the pockets of Elizabeth and Hunter as individuals and as a couple - this would have been stronger in category romance form.
Final Grade = C
8 comments:
Welp, you too got a dud this month.
Better luck to us both with our next read!
Honestly, those are the worst kind of books. It's tough when all the right elements seem to be there but it does nothing for you. Well, at least it's a book off the TBR!
Yikes, I'm sorry you got a dud! It sounds like there was good reason for the series dying on the vine, especially if this was trying to be a romance instead of straight up women's fiction. I agree that these are the worst sort of books, the ones that just lay there and do nothing. Bleh.
I managed to pick a gem myself, which I desperately needed after last month's bomb! I chose "Secrets Made in Paradise" by Natalie Anderson, an HP from 2020. This has all the fantasm of HPlandia and none of the bullshit: no external drama, no pushover heroine and jackhole hero. Anderson writes "quiet" HPs like that, but her characters are interesting and enduring and pack an emotional punch. There is sort of a secret baby/second chance romance set in the Galapagos islands, which is about as far away from plain ol' Kansas as one can get, LOL!! Both characters have emotional trauma and magnetic chemistry that they are determined to 'overcome' in order to do right by their son, but their chemistry is the kind that doesn't fizzle with familiarity. There's lots of lovely sea imagery sprinkled in, and the MCs Use Their Words to overcome the inevitable third act breakup. I really like this author and collect her backlist, so this was about as close to a slam dunk as I could get this month!
I just wanted to say my reading (and particularly my romance and romance adjacent reading) is in the toilet lately :-( but I'm still following the blog faithfully.
Happy Reading to all!
@Jill: agh, that sucks large! Fingers crossed this slump passes soon, and you are back to reading to your heart's content shortly.
Yeah, this book was just sort of...there. And these really are the worst because there's interesting bits to them, I should be enjoying my reading and I'm just...not. Oh well, it's a single title off the TBR and that's always a good thing.
Eurohackie: I don't think I've ever read Anderson? I've got at least one of her HPs in my digital TBR - I'll need to dig around in the print pile and see if others are there.
Jill: Oh man, that sucks. I hear you. I'm getting through books but so far my 3 and 2 star reads are outpacing 4+ stars in 2024 and it's just all so depressing.
Oof, only a novella, not even making it to book 2? I feel like this book was only bought by you and Jump's mom. I would have been suckered in by the cowboy on the cover. I've only read one book by Jump and gave it a three stars because while I liked it, yeah, meh. I have an old arc (Perfect Recipe for Love and Friendship) that kind of got left behind because even the synopsis reads meh.
Better luck next month!
Whiskey: Yes, that cover. Look, I'm a sucker for a cowboy as a general rule but there's something about the white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the heroine practically draped over him in a sunny yellow dress flashing us some leg....
They don't make covers like this anymore. Sadness.
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