The Touch of Fire by Linda Howard ***

This is an older Linda Howard, now out on Audiobook, narrated by Natalie Ross. I liked Natalie Ross as narrator, but the story itself never really rose above "just ok". It's a western, where the heroine, Annie, is a doctor in a small Western mining town - the only place that would have a woman doctor in post-Civil War America. Rafe McCae is on the lam, being hunted by several bounty hunters, when he's injured. He goes to Doc Parker, and he ends up kidnapping her and taking her hostage - sorta. She doesn't really go willingly, and he is sorta mean to her, but it turns out he's really a lawyer from New York City ("git a rope") who is being pursued to cover a governmental scandal. It was ok - not great, not bad.

Marry Me by Jo Goodman ***

Goodman is one of my very favorite authors, and her A Season To Be Sinful is one of my all-time favorite books, so she's an auto-buy for me. Luckily, this time it was a free download on Kindle that I read on my iPhone!

Goodman's American Western historicals have a different feel about the prose that doesn't touch me the way her Regencies (and other European time periods) do - the characters don't seem to be as richly or deeply drawn. This one follows Never Love A Lawman, and includes Wyatt and Rachel from the story. (I looked for my review but apparently didn't write one, although I rated it 5 stars in Bookpedia.) Cole Monroe is a big city doctor in charge of his teenaged sister Whitley when she sends an application letter under his name to Reidsville, Colorado. Reidsville is looking for a doctor, and Whitley is determined that Cole needs to leave the hospital where he is working under the man who would have been his father-in-law if the engagement hadn't been broken.

As the new doctor, Cole goes around to the "outliers" to make their acquaintance and let them know he's available if they need medical help. The opening of the story introduces the reader to the ne'er-do-well Abbot family with 3 no-good sons, one of who still lives at home with the old man. As it turns out, the youngest son, Runt Abbot - from a family of actors - has been acting all this time and has the entire town fooled, since he's a she: Rhyne. Cole discovers this when he finds her hemorrhaging during a miscarriage.

After that big and well-placed surprise is revealed, it gets purty predictable: he has to take her in to recuperate, and then she stays on as Whitley's mentor and the housekeeper and then... boy meets girl, blah blah. Since the title is MARRY ME, I sorta expected it to take longer to convince her to marry him - but by 2/3 of the way in, they're married. Then the real conflict is played out - something foreshadowed earlier, where Rhyne's father becomes even more of a villain than he was for beating her til she miscarried. (Goodman's heroines often have abusive pasts.)

So - it was ok, nothing earth shattering, didn't move me or make me laugh the way her other books have. Cole, like Wyatt in NLAL, is a beta hero, content to let Rhyne take her time and realize their shared passion. I was entertained, nothing more. 3 stars.

Angel Creek by Linda Howard ***

AUDIO: I got this from the library, with narrator Natalie Ross. I like, or have liked, Ross as a narrator, but she either cannot do justice to this property, or she cannot rise above it, cuz I thought her narration was pretty dang mediocre on this book, which is also pretty dang mediocre (or worse). The audio of this book didn't make the story any better.

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My Review from August 2008
First off - I got this in a Large Print 2-for-1 book from PBS. Yay! But I have to warn anyone who gets this book: Angel Creek is the second in the series, but for some reason it's the first in the book. Silly me, I didn't figure that out before reading them. It doesn't entirely ruin it, but there is a character in A Lady of the West who appears in Angel Creek, so if you read it first like I did, you'll know a spoiler going into A Lady...

Second off - holy moly. OK, it is Linda Howard, but it's early Linda Howard and although her writing chops were still great, man - it's - well - the men are not just alpha, they're complete assholes and I would have to say what they do pushes forced seduction so close to rape there'd be a hung jury or a conviction if the women pressed charges, ok? Hence my 3 stars because if the writing wasn't good, this would have been a 2 star or maybe even a DNF. She has these men just forget that No Means No - in their world, No means OK, I want it even though I think I don't. Bad. Oh yeah baby like that.

I tried to tell myself it was a Western thing, hard life, yada yada. But I mean. These men just said: "gimme" and took.

In this story, we have Luke - he's the owner of the Double C ranch, with no family left, and rich. We have Dee - no family left for her either, but all she has is her family ranch, not money - and Angel Creek, the best and sometimes only source of water in the region. We have a sorta bad guy - he's not really evil, but he's not all good either, named Kyle, and he's also a rancher with a big investment in land and cattle. We have a gently bred banker's daughter, whassername. And we have Luis Fronteras - he's a drifter from the first story, A Lady of the West. And we have a whore with a heart of gold, Tillie. Are you keeping track, here?? Get out a scorecard.

It seems everything traces back to something that happened 10 years ago, for every character. After the 4th or 5th time I saw the phrase "10 years ago" I kept thinking, what exactly was it about 10 years ago? It would have taken a calculator and some notepaper to figure out what year it was set in - some time after the Civil War (10 years?), but isn't exactly named - just references to what happened some time before.

Luke and whassername have a completely unspoken non-agreement. He figures she is what he needs as a wife if he ever decides he needs one. She is 25 - practically a crone - and figures she'll end up saying yes if he ever asks because where in the hell is she going to find a man to father children before her eggs dry up? Kyle and Tillie go way back - and also sometimes go upstairs for a poke - but Kyle wants to give Luke a run for his money, so he sorta almost pursues whassername. Maybe I should look up her name in the book. Kyle also pursues Dee because if she'd marry him, he'd have more/better water for his cattle. He also offers to buy Angel Creek.

Dee's a stubborn independent woman who shoots anyone who comes on her property, except, uh, Luke. Luke decides to sorta woo her a teensy bit, just for the land, mind you - except hot damn she's an exciting piece of flesh!! So - well - the bastard takes advantage of her when she's down and sort gets her all wanting him and stuff. Damn. He does start to realize that bonking Dee and marrying whassername might not be the best idea he ever had...

Luis wants whassername. Bad. He, of all the men in both books, is a gentleman for all he's a half breed or maybe full breed Mexican drifter gunslinger. He, of all the men in both books, treats his women right (and bonks them silly before offering for their hands... hmmmm....)

The big Turning Point is when Kyle goes crazy and lies to his men, telling them Dee will allow his thirst-crazed cattle onto her land. When they herd them over there, wouldn't you know that she's standing there with a gun, shooting at them? They all go nuts, wanting blood and rape and pillaging. Luis take Dee's side, runs to Tlllie, tells Tillie to get Luke to come save Dee, and then goes back to help Dee protect her property. Whassername doesn't even find out til the next day.

OK - did you need that scorecard to keep that straight??

The writing is good, the story is ok, the men are abominable and practically unforgivable. 3 stars, and only recommended to those (1) who happen to already own the book and (2) have nothing better to do or (3) are determined to read everything LH ever wrote.
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audio notes: Natalie Ross did such a fine job on After The Night, which I have listened to 2 or 3 times, that I really expected her to make this one work for me, even though I hadn't thought much of this book 2 years ago. She does voices very, very well - but her narrator voice was just sort of sing-songy and not interesting. I just didn't like it that much, but then I hadn't like the story that much when I read it either.

Caine's Reckoning by Sarah McCarty **

I went back and forth in my head about the rating for this. I figure 3 stars is "eh, ok" but the more I thought about it, 3 stars is "I liked it" and I really didn't. I mean, I didn't hate it. I finished it. But I didn't really like it.

I got it on audio, and that may or may not have colored my rating. The narrator was ok - I'd give her 3 stars. She had a southern accent thing going on - I'm not sure I've listened to anything by her before, so I don't know if that's her normal speech pattern or something for the book. Everyone had a southern accent. That's ok, it was Texas (decades ago - not sure exactly of the era, but "long ago", 19th century. Even those of Indian blood had the southern accent. Go figure.

I knew McCarty's work is a little more raw and explicit than mainstream, although I wouldn't say it's "romantica" (romance + erotica) so much as just, well, more explicit. I was expecting that. Somehow, though, it became almost pedantic. Ok, we're gonna spread some lips here, and there's gonna be some juicy bits and "cream" and then he's gonna have to taste her and at this point, I'm thinking, get it over with and let's get back to the story. It wasn't really sexy - more like a primer in ways to describe foreplay and sex in books, with lots of words that quickly became icky triggers for me, even though in other books they don't bother me. OK, call it a pussy - a few times, maybe. But in every other sentence it started to give me an eye twitch.

The heroine Desi started out feisty and someone who could take care of herself, then when she got a little cleaned up, she was this weird prudish girl who had been raised rich with not a care in the world, and thought so many things were not proper. And here she'd been a captive of comancheros and then used as a whore for several months - talk about not proper. And then - spoiler alert - turns out she likes a little rough stuff after all, which seemed sort of weird since she'd been so abused for so long. I had a hard time keeping up.

Since it is the first book of the Hell's Eight, of course we had to meet the other 7 (Caine being #1) and their sweet feisty elderly female caretaker (yeah, she's younger than I am, so elderly, huh?) who keeps them all honest and cleaned up. And her man. And the dog. That all took a while.

I dunno, I listened to the whole thing, and decided the bad guys were really really evil and bad (boooo!! hisssss!) and the good guys were incredibly good (yay! whoo hoo!) in a sort of cartoony way. If you like erotic romance, fully described bodily fluids, butt seks and eye candy covers mixed with 19th century Texas Rangers, go git it. I'll save my audible.com credits, though, thank you very much.

Prince Charming by Julie Garwood *****

It took a wonderful, wonderful book to make me want to blog again! This morning I finished Garwood's The Wedding, which I had been reading just a few pages at a time for several days, and since it was Sunday and I had no plans, I decided to pick up another Garwood title.

Garwood has a sort of pattern of writing - she uses similar settings and situations in many of the books I've read. Not the plot, necessarily, but similar phrasing, similar situations. She often has the heroine trying to change the hero to be more like her father - well, that's an oversimplification, but it seems the heroine is forever thinking that the hero doesn't know how to... show love, or greet his wife, or some such, and that she will have to show him how it's done, or how her father and mother were. I'm not explaining it well, but my point really is that Prince Charming took a "charming" detour off that route!

For one thing, it's set in post-Civil War America, whereas so many of the books I've read have been medievals. Apparently she has a trilogy set in the West as well, and I have read the first one in her contemporary series, but this was especially different since I had just finished The Wedding this morning.

There are some plot points in here that many romance readers cringe at - the arranged marriage to a stranger, a will that has provisions, and children. The fish out of water - rugged American hero, prissy Brit aristocrat heroine. Even a secret child, although it isn't the heroine's. But somehow Garwood made all these plausible, and wonderful, and wrote a story with depth and intrigue (well, sorta) and plot twists. Ok, some of the plot twists got solved a little too easily - but still, the story was wonderful and I enjoyed my day very much, just reading (with somes stops for a meal or 2).

Taylor is the heroine - raised by her grandmother who is now on her death bed, her biggest fear is that her uncle, who will inherit the title, the land and the funds, will find a way to take guardianship of her 2 young nieces, recently orphaned in America. Her second biggest fear is that he will also take guardianship over her. Her grandmother finagles a marriage to an American, in exchange for the sum of money he needs to pay ransom for his younger half-brother. Oh, it is all too complicated to explain here, but in the book it made a lot of sense - and the opening was brilliant.

Lucas Ross is the bastard child of an American mother and a British titled aristocrat who only cared about his actual heir, the oldest son. His bastard son, and his 3 other sons from his marriage don't matter to him, but the boys do matter to Lucas. He came to England to pay the oldest brother a ransom to let the youngest one go free. Since he's never planned to marry anyway, this marriage of convenience works well for him - escort the silly twit to Boston, and get an annulment before heading back to Montana.

Oh, if only romance writers would leave these poor heroes alone to do as they planned!! Taylor isn't any more desirous of the marriage, and looks forward to getting to Boston, getting rid of this American husband, then getting her sister's twins and heading West to hide forever from the evil uncle. But grandmother - now smiling down at them from Heaven, no doubt - managed to truly find a Prince Charming for Taylor - a man who couldn't leave her or the twins or the half-breed boy found taking care them either. Not to mention the single, pregnant woman Taylor befriended crossing the Atlantic.

I laughed and smiled and was worried and figuratively on the edge of my seat throughout the book (since I was mostly on the futon, I wasn't really on the edge, but... you know). It was a nice long book, too - over 500 pages!

I've pretty much given up on any challenges this year - I don't know if it fits in any of the ones I was involved in before fate took a twist for me, and moved me back to Houston. Working, and that damned Mafia Wars (so addictive! I cannot stop!), are both keeping me from my passion for reading. But today I indulged, and I'm glad I did. Maybe it's the first of many more reviews and challenges and reading.

5 stars and it's a Favorite too!

Reckless Love by Elizabeth Lowell *****

I find that Elizabeth Lowell's prose is a bit of an acquired taste - and that sometimes her treatment of a story can be wonderful, and the next time annoying as hell. This time I found it wonderful, even though it's over the top and there were probably a dozen times or so I wanted to bitch slap the hero (usually it's her heroines I don't like, but not this time).

I got this on audio download from the library, and I must say I really did like this narrator, Laural Merlington. I wouldn't compare her to Anna Fields, or Barbara Rosenblatt, who I think are truly incredible actors who bring the story to life. But she's good - really good - with this story. Her voice is pleasing, her characters' voices are good, distinct and consistent, and she really brought a sense of urgency to the big chase scene (no, not car chase - it's a historical western!) as well as reading the love scenes just right.

The hero is Ty Mackenzie, who has just managed to escape the gauntlet after being caught by Indians. The local "bruxa" is a white woman who lives alone in the area - Janna - and she follows him and heals his wounds while they both hide from the Indians seeking them.

Janna's father died a few years back, leaving her alone in the territory. He was a doctor, so she has healing skills, and she has also developed survival and coping skills that keep the Indians and locals away. Her only real friend is a local gold miner who shares his wealth with her because of her father. She's managed to befriend the local mustangs - and Ty was there looking for a mustang named Lucifer to start his horse ranch, make a lot of money and marry the silken lady of his dreams. AKA highborn, soft, probably rich.

Of course Janna doesn't fit this description by any stretch of the imagination - in fact for several days, he thinks she's a boy. Well, she does dress in men's clothing and binds her breasts for that very effect, as a survival mechanism, but it still pisses her off that he can't figure it out. And it pisses him off that he's attracted to this boy!

The story is about Ty getting the mustang back to his ranch, and Janna's part in it. She really doesn't want the mustang(s) caught and tamed, but she's willing to help him if he will do it her way, especially since she realizes it will mean the mustang will be well-cared for. It seems the locals and the Indians are considering killing Lucifer. And while Janna and Ty are hunting the mustang, they are also avoiding the Indians and the locals. And playing a little hanky panky too (in fine Lowell style).

Of course, Ty assumes she's not a virgin, because of talk he heard in town and also - in fine Lowell style - because of her sensual reaction to his touch, so he figures it's no big deal to seduce her. Once he realizes she is a virgin (and boinks her anyway), he decides he has to protect her or else she'll end up having to be a whore. What a broad minded guy, huh? Yeah, he's a typical Lowell historical hero. His idea of protection is to get her to town and find someone to marry her. Needless to say, she wants nothing to do with this idea.

Ty almost comes around to accepting her as she is - then at the end, he makes a complete ass of himself which requires a brotherly intervention. His brothers shoulda beat him to a pulp, but instead I think they just talk to him and he finally owns up that Janna is the woman of his dreams and he was deluded to think otherwise.

The action/adventure scenes really are edge-of-the-seat exciting, and Janna is a credible, independent heroine. I liked her retorts to Ty when she tells him exactly what he's been saying to her and how it affected her! You go, girl!

It fits the Western book of the Spring 2009 challenge and it's a series for the Serial Readers Challenge. 5 stars!

Spring Rain by Susan Weldon *

OMG. This was so awful I just had to read it all to believe how awful it was. Purple Prose. Cliche after cliche. Bad plot. Worse characterizations. Ghosts. OMG.

This was a story that has been written sooooo much better by Elizabeth Lowell in Only His. It's a heroine and hero drawn so much better by LaVyrle Spencer in Hummingbird. I'm sure any number of better authors have done better jobs with this subject matter.

It's almost laughable how bad it is. As I got towards the end, fully haven given up on its ever redeeming itself, I admit to skimming just to get to the last page.

It's 1872 in America. A prim, proper, Eastern virgin spinster of the advanced and decrepit age of 25 (gasp!) - a piano teacher with limited means - goes west to Denver to find her lost fiance. Ok, it's her 2nd fiance - her first one died on their wedding day. The 2nd fellow, while ok, is just someone with whom to spend her life - she doesn't really love him as she did #1. He decided to try his hand at finding gold so he could support her in style, as his own general store is just middling successful. After 1 year gone, his letters stopped and she began having nightmares of his death. At first, she sent money to friends in Denver who hired a scout to find him, but with no luck.

Now she plans to accompany the newest scout on a search so she can locate Clarence's body and put him to his final rest.

Well, who is this scout? Well, little lady, he's the roughest, the toughest, the meanest badass hunk of gorgeous man around - Reno McCord!! He bursts out of a saloon and knocks her over, taunts her a little, then proceeds to brawl his way to jail, where she finds him the next day. She tells him she's wealthy so he'll do it (why that matters, as long as she can pay her fee, I dunno.)

Then she tricks him into taking her along, lying to him that she can ride a horse. He insists she wears men's clothing - so she buys some but wears a dress on top so that he can't see her legs and ass shamefully displayed in the tight pants.

Yeah, doesn't this all sound credible enough?

So they spend the next several days traveling together, each of them switching back and forth like quicksilver from hate to lust to teasing to haughtiness and round and round they go. My head was spinning. I'm thinking to myself, the woman has never been on a horse and she can even WALK the next day? Not. But, hey, yeah, she does.

It's so over-the-top purple prose that I found myself groaning inwardly AND outwardly over and over. It's another virgin who manages to have wild monkey sex several times in one night - the first night, the next night and several more nights, including in a freezing cold waterfall (what a real man he is, no?). It's got the "I'll never marry, I can't settle down" multi-experienced man. It's got the "I'm now desperately in love with you after 1 day" virgin spinster. And to top it all off, it's also got the Secret Baby and the sudden-change-of-mind man proud of how potent he is that she's pregnant (after a couple dozen tries, at least) too. I just finished it so I could put it in my Spring 2009 Challenge under the title that reminds you of Spring (not that the story has anything to do with Spring) - and as a bonus, in my New Authors 2009 and A To Z challenges too. But I don't plan to give Ms Weldon another chance because it wasn't just mediocre, it was plain awful.

Do not read this book if you are looking for a good read. That's my advice anyway. But LLB over at AAR says it's one of her favorite Westerns and gave it a fairly high rating. Just goes to show, it takes all kinds, no?

The Princess Goes West by Nan Ryan ***

This is my 3rd book by this author. I picked one up in the Portal Library Sale, which I liked (You Belong To My Heart), and I got one on audio book, which I found just average (Dearest Enemy). I don't see Ryan mentioned in Romance blogs and forums, so I'm not sure what others think about her. This one - well, I had great hopes for it and I thought it started out well, but as it went on, it became sorta average, and then the ending just was flat for me, and it dropped from a potential 5 star read to a 3 star at best.

This one is a sort of mistaken identity story - it made me think of Susan Andersen's Baby I'm Yours, where a bounty hunter grabs the wrong twin sister and drags her on a road trip back to jail. Virgil Black is a Texas Ranger in 1880 when he's given the job of catching the Queen of the Silver Dollar, an actress from Las Cruces, New Mexico and an accomplice in a robbery. But the tip he's given instead leads him to Princess Marlena of some fictional European country who was touring America looking for support for her country. She had fallen ill, and was recuperating while the Queen of the Silver Dollar filled in for her.

Marlena, a true spoiled brat, fought Virgil as hard as she could, but eventually - as must always happen on road trip romances - the two of them gave into the smoldering chemistry between them while in the New Mexico desert.

It was fun at first, and I had some laughs while reading it. But the story went flat when the truth about her look-alike comes out. It was another Big Mis which just wrapped up all the loose ends a little too quickly (in spite of it being about 400 pages).

This one fits the Western category of the Spring 2009 Challenge.

Only His by Elizabeth Lowell *****

I have read this book 2 or maybe 3 times, and when I found out it was also on audio, I had to have it! I just finished the re-visit, on audio, today.

It's a Western, taking place after the Civil War. Willow Moran, parading as Mrs. Moran, Matt Moran's wife, is actually his sister. Matt sent his family a map to where he was, in the Rockies, and Willow was the only one left at home, after her parents died and her brothers scattered to the 4 winds. She heads to Denver where she meets up with Caleb Black, the man she's hired to lead her to Matt.

Caleb takes the job, thinking Willow is probably just his "fancy lady" aka mistress, because he's looking to kill the man who got his sister pregnant and left her - a man named Reno - AKA Matt Moran. He doesn't tell Willow the truth about why he agrees to lead her into the Rockies wilderness - and he doesn't have much respect for a soft, Southern lady who would lead 5 over-bred horses into such wild territory either. He has just enough respect to keep from touching her, on the off-chance she really is married.

Willow is made of tougher stuff than Caleb realizes - she held her own during and after the war, and made her own way across the country. He puts her through a lot of misery - riding in the rain, on a sidesaddle, for hours through the night to avoid the Bad Guys - but she takes it all without complaint. Her horses are as tough as she is.

This book is #1 in the Only series, with 3 other books - Only You, Only Mine and Only Love. Only Love is the only other one I loved as much - I really disliked the heroines and the stories of the other 2. Lowell writes hard alpha male heroes that a lot of people don't like, but in this story, I always felt he managed to justify his actions, if only from his POV. He was hard on her, but he also thought she was a spoiled whore, not worthy of his respect or tender feelings. Once he learns the truth about her and her mission, and once she shows him how tough she is, she earns his respect, and his love.

Lowell also writes sensual and hot love scenes that are among my favorites - in this one, with its trout-tickling metaphors, the hot pool scene is grrreat.

So I enjoyed the re-visit, and will no doubt put it back on the ipod in a few months and wander the Rockies with Willow and Caleb again. 5 stars

Shane by Jack Schaefer *****

Recently I downloaded a PDF of extras for Suzanne Brockmann's latest in the Troubleshooter Series, #13 Into The Fire, from the author's website. On it she has a workshop, Tall, Dark & Believable: Writing compelling romance heroes in which she mentions Shane as being one of her all-time favorite heroes. In fact, she says, "No doubt about it, this character has influenced every one of the men in my books." (In case you're not familiar with Shane, it's a Western.)

For one thing, for you Brockmann/Troubleshooter fans, Sam Starrett's last name is the surname of the family in the book, no doubt a tribute. Shane himself has no last name, although you can see Shane's character and his implied background in Sam as well.

I've seen the movie Shane a couple of times, maybe more, but had never read the book - which, she points out, is her inspiration, not the movie. So I gandered over to the Amazon hitchin' post and ordered me a copy. I didn't just get any ol' copy, I got The Critical Edition, which comes packed with a lot of other stuff - mostly reviews and critical expositions on Schaefer the author and Shane the concept and Schaefer's symbolism and historical details and such. It's a lot of stuff - I read some of it before jumping into the meat of the story (which is short, by the way) and a couple of things after I was done.

First the story. From what I recall, the movie is a pretty fair rendition of the story - even if Alan Ladd doesn't exactly fit my image of the gunslinger. And hey - they changed the kid's name from Bob to Joey in the movie!

The story is told in first person by Bob Starrett the adult, as a recollection from his childhood. Shane is a mysterious stranger who shows up at the Starrett's Wyoming homestead one afternoon in the late 1880s. He asks to water his horse, and as he's leaving, Bob's father Joe Starrett asks him to stay for supper and the night.

The Starretts are one of several homesteaders in the area, working their 160-acre plots as both farmers and minor cattle ranchers. According to some of the extra material in my edition, this was a critical time for open-range ranchers and homesteaders, and there was a lot of political activity, mostly funded and initiated by cattle barons, to keep homesteaders from fencing out the cattle from ranging. That's actually an issue that is hot even today in some states - but I digress.

The other homesteaders consider Joe their leader, and when Joe's most recent hired hand is forced out of town by cattle baron Fletcher's cowboys, a line has been drawn in the sand. Between the 2 factions lies the town and the people who live there to serve them. The town isn't Switzerland, though, and their loyalties shift with the perceived power - which, at the time Shane arrives, is slightly leaning toward Fletcher.

Joe and his wife Marian both take to Shane immediately, although it isn't made 100% clear through Bob's youthful and naive eyes exactly why. In fact, as the reader you're left to draw your own conclusions at the end. I kept wondering if in fact they knew him, or knew of him, all along. Shane also takes to them, all 3 of them, and warily settles in as a hired hand. One thing is clear: he owns a gun, but he never carries it. Another is only hinted at - the balance of power on the Starrett ranch shifts perceptibly when Shane takes over Joe's chair at the dinner table. It's a powerful image but conflicting, because in Bob's eyes, Joe never really gives up anything to Shane, he only accommodates him to serve his own purposes.

The cattle baron tries to run Shane out of town, sending cowboys to rough him up, but Shane is wise in the ways of fighting, even without a gun. And he does have a reputation - of the 2 cowboys sent first, one either recognizes him or is scared off by his looks, and leaves town rather than face him. I read it as recognition. The other takes him on, much to Shane's chagrin. Shane doesn't want to fight him - and lets him know it before breaking his arm.

Fletcher takes it up a notch by bringing in a gunfighter who goads another homesteader into a gunfight, in which the homesteader is killed. Then Fletcher puts the ball in Starrett's court: sell out or face the consequences. Joe wants to sell out, to save everyone - Shane, Marian, the other homesteaders - from any further fighting. Oh, you know he doesn't really want to sell out - but he's a family man, and a leader - he knows he must at least put voice to the fact that people and lives come first, even before honor if it means being Dead Right. It's a lesson that goes a long way with Bob, I felt, even though Marian and Shane convince him leaving is not the answer. Marian knows leaving without a fight will mean giving up more than land, and that it will go against all the things he believes in. She knows he is doing it for her, but stands her ground.

The issue of any feelings between Marian and Shane is left completely to the reader's imagination. Bob overhears things said between them, and he relays them filtered through his youth. It could be she fancied him as a man, as a lover, or it could just be that she saw him as a hero just as Bob did. Her love for Joe is never really questioned, in my mind, by Bob's narrative. Her reaction to Joe after the bar fight gives me the idea that Shane brings out the good and the strong in Joe, which she appreciates. I think even the movie gives you more of her wanting Shane than might be there in the book. She only questions whether what Shane does for them is only for her - she speaks this as though maybe something has passed between them, maybe only shared looks and nothing more.

Well - this isn't romance, although there is a happy ending for Joe and Marian. We don't know if Shane ever gets his happy ending, because he does what Western heroes do - he goes off into the sunset, alone. The scene, through Bob's eyes, choked me up, but the real tears started after that, when a cowboy shows up to take Shane's place on the farm. I can't rightly say why that got me going, but as I write this now I'm tearing up again. It isn't just Shane, it's Joe, and it's Marian and it's the town and the cowboy. Shane wasn't the only hero in the book, he was just the catalyst to bringing out the hero in every good person in the story, even Bob. Maybe especially Bob. While the movie ends with Joey-the-kid calling out to Shane not to leave, the book goes on to show us more of the impact on Bob's life, the lessons he took away from the entire story. He already had more than Shane had ever had - loving parents, a strong community, roots, education. Shane was just a passerby who made it all clear.

5 stars. A tearjerker and a keeper. Maybe I'll even read all those boring critical reviews about all the symbolism and stuff.

Twin of Fire by Jude Deveraux **

Ok, now that I've read the companion book to Twin of Ice, I can definitely say it was a 2 star read.

I was so confuzzled by Twin of Ice that, to be fair, I gave it 3 stars, hoping that maybe reading Twin of Fire would clear it up and I'd at least find it average or mediocre.

Nope. I struggled and slogged and... ok, I finally ended up skimming just to get it over with, because I couldn't bring myself to DNF it. ("did not finish")

This is Blair's side of the story - how she managed to boink her twin sister's fiancé and marry him, then rewrite her personal history to be that she was always in love with him.

There were so many odd things in this story. For one thing, everyone in town always called both girls Blair Houston, since they were identical twins, one named Blair, one named Houston. However, the girls are now 21 and Blair has been living with relatives in Pennsylvania since she was 12. Uh, no one realized that it was only Houston living there all this time? Go figure. Mind you, this is even when they call her house where she is living with her husband - uh, they still can't tell which twin would be answering? What is it, a town of dolts?

Once again, there was weird dialogue where the response had nothing to do with the statement it was in reply to, over and over. As an example, Blair asks Lee, How often do you come here (to a cabin)? and Lee replies, Since I was a child. Hmmm. I'm thinking, and how does that quantify how often you come here, Lee?

Plus we had oodles of that obnoxious plot conceit where the heroine is determined to, no matter what, follow - or lead - the hero into every dangerous situation there is, because... well, because she said so. And the flip side of that is the hero insisting he'll tie her to the bed to keep her safe while putting himself in numerous dangerous situations, even though he's not an ex-Navy SEAL or undercover operative. Arg. Hate that.

Well, all in all, the story was bizarre, the characters odd, the writing so weird I found myself staring at the page wondering if it was a translation from a foreign language. A Bad Translation.

I'm not even going to elaborate any more on the plot - something about mines, lady doctors, twins (did I mention Blair already had a fiancé when she had sex with her sister's fiancé?), well too many different things were going on and...

2 stars. I've wasted enough time on this series.

Twin of Ice by Jude Deveraux **

What a truly odd book this was.

I sometimes really like Jude Deveraux's stories, and sometimes I really don't like them. But this one - well, I just found it truly odd.

First of all, it often seemed as if major chunks of information were missing. And - they were. See, this is 2 stories, Twin of Ice and Twin of Fire, taking place at the same time. The Ice Twin is Houston Chandler, always a lady. The Fire Twin is her identical twin sister, Blair Chandler, apparently the opposite. But I read Ice first, and felt a lot of the time like I was missing something.

This isn't the only instance of an author writing different books that take place at the same time. The most recent I've read is Julia Quinn's The Lost Duke of Wyndham/Mr Cavendish, I Presume. In fact, I am thinking maybe I picked up Ice/Fire from a discussion on books with this conceit.

OK - Houston's story is that she is the "good" twin. She has been in love with Dr. Leander Westfield for as long as she can recall, and has been engaged to him for years. In fact, their wedding is just around the corner, so the "evil" (? I guess - since I haven't read her story) twin Blair is in town for the wedding. Blair has become a doctor and was living... elsewhere.

The chain of events that led up to the twins deciding to switch places for an evening still has me baffled. Kane Taggert, the hero, was such a buffoon with such bad language and habits that I was convinced he was going to later "out" himself as just kidding. He somehow appeals to Houston to come to his house for dinner on an evening she has a date with Leander. Houston convinces Blair to go with Leander in her place, since Leander doesn't seem to be able to tell them apart (although Kane can?). Blair - I guess I'll learn more when I read Twin of Fire - manages to sleep with Leander even though up to this point Blair and Leander can barely have a civil conversation. Go figure, 1 week before the wedding and the sister sleeps with her future brother-in-law.

I can't resist letting the cat out of the bag about Kane - he wasn't kidding. He was as rough a hero as I've read about, and pretty obnoxious about it too. Because Blair slept with Leander, they were forced to marry (not sure who told on them though), and the next thing you know, Houston is planning a double wedding with her and Kane as couple #1 and Blair and Leander as couple #2. And if sleeping with her sister's fiancé (and then marrying him) wasn't enough, the Fire Twin bitch tried to switch grooms at the wedding as if no one would notice, theoretically to save Houston from being forced to marry the madman Kane. Maybe after I've read Blair's story I'll feel more empathy for her, but during this book I just wanted to bitch slap her. Hadn't it occurred to Blair that it didn't matter which twin stood where, the wedding license would have the right names??

The balance of the plot is just how Houston and Kane manage to find their HEA - he thinks she married him for money, and nothing she says changes his mind. She discovers he married her to get revenge on another character, and that's another obstacle they have to overcome. The whole thing was just weird enough, though, that I had trouble following.

There seemed to be odd jumps in dialog too, where one person would say something and the response would be so out of left field, I wondered if I skipped a page. Another oddity to me was the juxtaposition of humorous and macabre - lots of suicides and death in this story, surrounded by jokes and people making fun of each other. I Just Did Not Get It.

Sometimes I find a book has characters I dislike, or a story line that annoys me, or even bad grammar. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is about this book that baffled me so. I didn't really hate it as much as I think I should. Maybe reading Twin of Fire will allow me to understand them both better - or maybe I'll read it and decide I really did hate it [ETA: the decision is in: Did Not Like It]. After all, I want my emotions engaged, I want to feel something besides confused when I read, and confused is all I felt about Twin of Ice. Disgusted is was I felt after finishing Twin of Fire: disgust at having wasted a PBS credit or 2 (hopefully I got a deal on them) as well as several hours of reading.

The AAR Reviewer used 2 words in her review of this that I should have used: incoherent (as in, incoherent writing) and barbarian (as in Kane, the barbarian hero). Yep. I shoulda said that. She seemed to like Blair and Lee better, so maybe I'll like them too.

So for now, 3 stars because I can't honestly say I did not like it, I just don't know how I feel. Scratch that: now that I've finished Twin of Fire, I'm demoting it to 2 stars, Did Not Like It. I reserve 1 star for DNF or really hated it, and this didn't stir up that much emotion.

And dangit, it didn't even fall under any of my reading challenges!!

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers *****

Wow - who knew? This is "inspirational" aka Christian romance, and - despite my own personal dearth of faith - I loved this story! Ms. Rivers is an incredible writer.

I listened to the interview with the author at the end of this, and she is indeed a born-again Christian who is devoting her writing and her life to spreading God's Word. This is something that normally I run from, in a big way, as fast as possible.

I was raised Christian - so I do have some background and minimal education in this culture. Not really religious, but we did go to church pretty much every week when I was a child, and we were involved in the church socially. But I haven't darkened the door of any church for anything other than tourism or maybe a wedding in several decades. And I don't plan to start going to church or reading the Bible or anything now - this wasn't a born-again moment for me. In fact, I got this book to read to fulfill one book in a Challenge - so much for Challenges being a way to whittle away the TBR mountain!! I did a little research on inspirational romance, and just jumped into this one.

Redeeming Love is Ms. Rivers' first inspirational Romance. According to the interview, she wrote "steamy historical romance" before this, and then had her calling - and apparently she got the rights back to all those other books and they are no longer in print. Too bad, because her writing is really wonderful! She decided, however, that true love was between God and Man (or Woman) and not between Man and Woman, therefore her switch.

That's not to say there wasn't wonderful romance between a man and a woman, along with some good secondary romances as well. But nothing graphic, and basically the idea was that love of God comes first and other love stems from that. Or something like that, anyway. That's ok because she managed to put a boatload of tension, sexual and otherwise, into her story.

The story is based on the biblical story (surprised?) of Hosea and Gomer. Go figure, Gomer is a woman's name. It's a sort of allegory about God and Israel (the people) - how, no matter how much they strayed from his Word, God forgave them. In both this book and the Hosea/Gomer story, God tells the hero (Michael Hosea in this story) to wed a prostitute and to continue to love and forgive her no matter what.

In Redeeming Love Sarah aka Angel has a much more detailed and incredibly tragic story than what I could learn of Gomer's story via google. Sarah was born in 1832 to a single woman, May, who had an affair with a married man. He apparently set her up for 3 years, but declined to meet his daughter. He finally throws May and Sarah out of their house, at which point they go to May's parents, who also refuse to help. Down on their luck, they move to the docks area, get a shanty and a simpleton protector for several years. During this time, May turned tricks to help support them, as this was the only option left to her. When Sarah turned 8, May died - and the simpleton, not even knowing her name, sells her to a man he thinks is adopting her.

Unfortunately for Sarah, "Duke" isn't exactly adopting her. Instead, he's got a thing for little girls, and Sarah begins her life of prostitution at age 8. He gives her the name Angel because she's so beautiful she looks like one.

Michael Hosea traveled to California with his sister and brother-in-law Paul around 1848. His sister died on the way, and Paul decides to join the Gold Rush after they get land and build cabins. Michael is truly devout, and is waiting for God to reveal the woman meant to be his wife. By this time (1850), Angel has managed to run away from Duke and get to a place in California named Pair O'Dice (I am guessing at the spelling since I listened to the audio book) where she is the featured prostitute at The Palace. It's the nearest town to Michael's and Paul's land, and he sees her when he is in town selling his produce and getting supplies. He hears God tell him she's the one... and when he learns her career and reputation, he realizes he's being tested.

Just like the Hosea/Gomer story, Angel isn't convinced he's the one - and she runs away from him time after time, going back to turning tricks to support herself. While Michael is filled with patience - and well-described and realized love for her - she is filled with self-doubt and self-hatred. How can she ever trust a man, after being prostituted as a child? She learned her hatred of God and men also from watching how her mother's life played out - her dreadful biological father, her unforgiving grandfather, the awful way May died, with a rosary in her hands. As far as she's concerned, there is no God, there is only Hell on Earth for her, and she isn't worthy of anything better.

There were so many heart-wrenching things in Angel's short life - for one, she had 2 abortions while living with Duke, and during the second one, the doctor was ordered to permanently end her child-bearing ability. Even though she tells Michael, and he tells her it's ok and he still loves her, over time he does slip and say and do things that indicate he wants children. Another family moves to the area, and there's a daughter about Angel's age - a kind, lovely, virginal girl who seems to embody all the things Angel - and Paul - think Michael deserves in a wife. It's a constant source of pain and tension for Angel, and for Paul, to see Miriam and Michael together, even though Michael says they are just friends, and that Miriam sees him only as an older brother.

It's a very involved story, and I spent most of it on the virtual edge of my seat, hurting for Angel, hurting for Michael, even occasionally hurting for Paul (although mostly I wanted to strangle him for how much he assumed and messed up). Things that happened to Angel before she moved to California get revealed slowly, and on more than one occasion I gasped in shock. If you're going to read this, it isn't really a spoiler to know there is indeed a HEA (since it's a Romance) but it's so late in the story and so much happens to keep them apart that it was incredibly hard to keep reading without knowing for sure!!

And if you are somewhat squeamish about being preached at in a book of fiction that you intended to read for fun, you'll be glad to know she avoids it until the very end - there are lots of references to Michael's faith, and some references to the faith of the new neighbors (he's apparently an ordained minister, something which I didn't realize until late in the story) - but it's not overly preachy. Ok, at the very end (and I may be tainted by having listened to the interview which was proselytize-y) after Angel's conversion, it did start to get a little more preachy.

The narrator is Kate Forbes - I loved her narration of Linda Howard's Open Season (unfortunately, that was an abridged version) and she was wonderful in this one too. She has a sort of young-Judy-Garland thing going on with her voice, and her character voices are good and consistent. Her narration gets 5 stars from me.

So - ok - 5 stars too for Ms Rivers' incredible gift of story-telling, for her ability to confront child abuse, prostitution and the treatment of women in general and turn it into a wonderful story of the redeeming power of love.

A Lady of the West by Linda Howard ***

As I wrote in the entry for Angel Creek, I was lucky to get this in a Large Print 2-for-1 book with Angel Creek. However - the book has Angel Creek as the first story, but chronologically it's the second one in the series and this one should be read first to avoid character spoilers.

If you read my review of Angel Creek, you already know I have mostly contempt for the men - heroes and villains - in these 2 books. The men in this book are the worst. I mean, what bastards! Especially the Sarratt brothers, Ben and Jake, the 2 "heroes" which is only to mean they are the main protagonists. Jake is the #1 asshole, I mean hero.

The brothers witnessed their mother's rape and murder, and saw their father dead, and managed to escape some 20 years earlier at ages 13 and 11 with slight bullet damage. They have spent the past 20 years honing their gun skills and their anger because the killer took over their father's property and has been living on it ever since. They are gonna get it back, come hell or high water.

Now, 20 years later, their plan is ready - with one fly in the ointment. If they kill the bastard McLain who murdered their parents and stole their land, now his new bride - Victoria - will inherit. Victoria has just arrived from Augusta, GA, with her young cousin and sister in tow. She's basically been sold to the old guy, McLain, by her parents who were devastated in the war. Civil War.

McLain is really a bad guy, and lucky for Victoria, he can't seem to get his johnson to react so the marriage is never consummated. Jake has immediate lust for Victoria anyway and decides after he murders McLain, he'll marry her so he can have everything he wants - Victoria's pussy and the land. What a nice guy, huh? NOT. He pressures her a lot to let him have a little before he kills McLain - what's a little adultery between friends, right?

And just when you thought Jake was the biggest asshole, here comes Lil Brother Ben - who decides he'd like a piece of ass too - how about cousin Emma? But marry her? No way Jose. Just put out and shut up, that's his motto. Makes ya get all warm and squishy just thinking about it, huh? Good thing Emma's spine is a little stronger than Victoria's. She holds out for months.

Is this Linda Howard's idea of how men were in the old West, or is it just before she started writing great alpha heroes? I'm pretty sure a jury wouldn't take 20 minutes to convict either one of rape and assault. The brutes!! And frankly, I didn't find their technique that coma-inducing either - they had a sort of wham bam shut up ma'am way about them.

Meanwhile Luis (if you kept your scorecard from Angel Creek, he's the one who wanted whassername) has discovered what a treat little sister Celia is. Too bad she's written in as, well, slow. "Fey" was another way they put it. But it came across as mentally challenged. Yep, wasn't that sweet of him to show her his thing when she asked, all innocent and full of wonder. Remember, he's a gentleman and women love him. Even 16 year old mentally challenged women. (rape rape rape - jury verdict in 10 minutes on this one)

OK - there's some plot twists and turns - they do manage to kill McLain (he's actually killed by a woman servant McLain raped, robbing Jake and Ben of their right to murder him theirselves, dagnabit) and get the ranch back. At this point, Jake rapes Victoria, then marries her, then continues to rape her as much as possible. She, of course, falls in love with him, and lo and behold gets pregnant pretty quickly.

Now - he's not much of a talker, but he's a deep thinker. He's thinking she's holding some awful secret from him, but he doesn't know what. We know what it is - she's sad because she's in love with him, but she thinks he had only 2 choices - marry her or kill her for the land. She thinks this because BEN SAYS IT in front of her. Oh. So she's sad that she's just a piece of ass with land to him.

When she announces her pregnancy, he immediately decides it's McLain's baby, and well - he is a ratass bastard, so in his dark world, the baby has to go at birth and she can either go or stay. She tells him, no no, McLain never did it to her. This is when we learn he is also a batterer - he knocks her across the room, leaving her bruised and bloody. Does ANYONE like this guy?

Oh - but when the local whore tells him Victoria's telling the truth, McLain never touched Victoria and it's indeed his baby, sure, THEN he wants Victoria to forgive him, goddammit. Right. He believes a whore but not his wife. Yes, they'll have years and years of loving to look forward to, huh? NOT.

oooo it makes me mad to write this.

And yet - LH is a good story teller and excellent writer, so as mad as those ratass bastard Sarratt brothers made me, I'm still going with 3 stars. What a sucker I am.

Only Love by Elizabeth Lowell *****

I have a mixture of reactions to Elizabeth Lowell's works. Sometimes I just love them. Sometimes I want to scream ENOUGH ALREADY. She has a way of working you over, working over the situation, repeating the issues, using and overusing adjectives and adverbs - it's dramatic and lush and sometimes I fall prey to her work and sometimes it gets under my skin and gives me the heebie jeebies. Go figure. It's pretty much the same in all her books, whether contemporaries or historicals, and sometimes it works for me and sometimes it just doesn't.

It worked for me big time in Only Love. Only Love is the 4th in her "Only" series that star the Moran siblings and their friend Wolfe Lonetree. Only His is the 1st and it's truly a DIK status book for me that I have re-read and loved. Books 2 and 3, Only You and Only Mine, didn't do it for me. I disliked the heroines in both (especially Jess, Wolfe's heroine), and the stories just got on my nerves. So I held off for a long time before getting Only Love. In fact, I reread Only His one more time just to see - maybe it's my mood when I read? - but no, I loved it all over again.

The hero is Rafael Moran - "Whip" is his Western nickname, for the bullwhip he uses so masterfully. It made me think of Alex in SEP's Kiss An Angel, because he was also a master at the bullwhip. Now I really want to see someone use it this way to see if it's true - Lowell has Whip using it constantly, hovering and whispering and shimmering - does it really work like that? (The show in Kiss An Angel when he first uses it on the heroine is so erotic!)

Whip is what Lowell calls a "yondering man" - I guess he's always going over yonder? I have never even heard of that before, but it works. She means, of course, wandering. He was born a Rambling Man. He's been all over the world and is a restless guy, never wanting to settle down. Even with the pull he feels to Shannon, our beloved heroine, even realizing early on she's been in his dreams, he doesn't understand she's what he's been yondering for until the end.

Shannon is a widow - well, sorta like Willow was in her book (Only His) anyway. She was actually under the protection of her great uncle, pretending to be his bride for her safety out in the wild west wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. The one thing that really got to me about Shannon was her inability to see she truly needed to either have someone in her life or go somewhere else, that staying there alone was not only foolish but would be fatal. I had to agree with Whip on that. While I did respect her wish to be independent like her shaman buddy Cherokee, I just felt like she had some kind of death wish to just stay in that dilapidated shack and not try to do any better for herself. I kept trying to convince myself it was because she just couldn't imagine anything better.

Her imagination should have gotten a little better after she met Whip. He came into her life and helped her out - he did the Man chores she so desperately needed done, like hunting for food and splitting wood, and fixing up her cabin. But she realized early on he was a yondering man (probably because he kept telling her it was so) and that she couldn't tie him down. His plan was just to get her into a safe position and leave, hoping she could figure out a way to stay safe on her own. Of course, he imagined her safe and celibate, mind you - it sorta got to him when his own relatives pointed out the best situation would be for her to find a man, get married and bear his children. He didn't want another man having her, you see. Hmmmm. (someone knock Whip upside the head here, ok?)

Lowell's love scenes are so steamy you have to keep wiping your reading glasses to go on (and you have to keep stretching and shifting around - man, she can really get some ideas in your head!!). She winds the tension and the sexual chemistry so tightly it's a wonder you don't rip the book in half and scream, in situations that just crop up and are not contrived. The two of them under the tarp during the hail storm... sigh...

It was fun to have them visit Willow and Caleb from Only His, as well as Eve and Reno, and Wolfe. Jess is only a mention (thank goodness, because I'm still irritated with her from her book). I like reading series that bring the other characters back in for visits, like old friends.

It was slightly over-the-top dramatic, slightly too many adjectives and ol' timey sayings, you know, "he clung to it like a beaver with its whatever whatever*", those things yer grandpappy is always saying. But if you just slip into the skin of the characters and let those things roll right over you, it can work. It did work for me. 5 stars and a keeper.

(* I just made that up cuz I couldn't find any examples fast enough...) wait here's one "as foolish as walking barefoot through a campfire".

Vows by LaVyrle Spencer ***

Dang it, I'm considering giving Vows 2 stars just because I finished it thinking, is that it? OK, it wasn't bad, it just was not interesting.

The hero is Tom, arriving as a newcomer to Sheridan, Wyoming, in 1888, with plans to start a new life as a blacksmith running his own livery. He's left his old life behind because his fiancée jilted him for another man.

Tom goes into the local competition to stable his horses, and mistakes the heroine Emily for a young boy working on a horse's hoof. This sets Emily off - and here is where I started disliking her. After all, she was dressed in boy's clothing, she's young and thin, she's wearing her hair stuffed into a boy's cap and she's dirty - surely this is not the first time anyone thought she was a boy. She's not just set off - she immediately turns into a rude spitfire, which amuses Tom and makes her even madder.

Emily is practically betrothed to Charles, who is a childhood friend that accompanied her family out West. He's always known he would marry Emily, but she's not so sure. She's just not that turned on by him, or even by the thought of any man. It made you think maybe she was more than just a tomboy...

Then there's Emily's father, the long suffering Edwin, and her mother, the dying Josephine. Edwin and Josie were betrothed young but Edwin only had eyes for Josie's cousin Fannie. Because that was how things were done, Edwin and Josie married but moved away because he couldn't stay around Fannie. Fannie, a spitfire like her niece, stayed single but lived the life of an independent woman - she had affairs, she wore pants, she rides bicycles - whoooey!

OK - just hit me on the head right now. First Tom's long-time betrothal to his childhood sweetheart, then Emily, and then the repercussions of the same in Edwin and Josie's marriage. I GET IT - this is the opposite of the First Love story. Tom's girlfriend was brave enough to throw Tom over and break his heart. Edwin and Josie weren't and although they stayed married and had 2 kids, they never did fall in love. Now that Josie is dying of consumption, she calls on Fannie to come help her family - guess what, she did it on purpose because she's known all along about Edwin's true love for Fannie.

Now - throw in some parties with really weird parlor games - I'm going to give Spencer her due and assume she can prove these games were actually played by single 20-somethings in 1888 - and we have the bones of putting Tom and Emily in each other's ways long enough to develop a relationship. Or at least Spencer must hope it's long enough, but I myself wasn't convinced. There was one believable scene that shows the budding of their relationship. Emily's studying by mail to be a veterinarian, and goes to help a farmer with a pig. Tom goes with her because on the return trip she takes him to a ranch to buy horses. There is where their relationship is started, and maybe if there'd been more of that type of interaction I would have found it more interesting. But paying a forfeit by staying in a closet together for 5 minutes where they share their first kiss just didn't do it for me.

And Emily - well, she's young and inexperienced, and she thinks she is required to marry Charles to make her mother happy. Or something. It's like she knows it's not right, but she's stubborn and she'll by gawd make it work with Charles. Even after having a taste of actual passion with Tom, she thinks she can make it work with Charles, from whom she pulls away at every touch. I just didn't get behind her line of thought.

Then there's the HEA - yeah, they finally do what's in their hearts and go for the HEA. But the very last sentiment in the book just ruined it for me. See, Charles - now broken hearted - stays to help his BFF Tom rebuild his burned down business, then leaves town before the wedding, smart fellow that he is. He's like Tom in the beginning - he needs to go start a new life now that he's been thrown over by his girl for his best friend forever. So what do our newlyweds talk about on their wedding night? Whether or not Charles will ever come back, and Tom says yes, with both of us here, he'll be back. Yeah, right, as if Tom plans to go back to his hometown now?? Puh-leeze.

OK 3 stars, just because. But man, that last sentence just ruined it for me, big time.

Forgiving by LaVyrle Spencer ****

Forgiving is another of LaVyrle Spencer's Americana series - set in the 1870s in the Dakota territory. And it's another one where Spencer creates characters that grabbed my heart and squeezed until I was sure there would never be anyone happy ever again. Arg, why does she do that??

The heroine is Sarah, a 25-year-old spinster coming to Deadwood by train to find her sister Addie who ran away from home 5 years earlier at the age of 16. She, like some of Spencer's other heroines, has been with her widowed father and hasn't had a real chance for love. Bookish, plain and independent, she's been assisting her father in the printing business, and now that he's dead, she's brought her printing press to Deadwood to start a newspaper.

She finds Addie working in a brothel; Addie doesn't want to see her or have anything to do with her.

Enter the hero: Marshal Noah Campbell. They meet at the brothel where Sarah learns he's been a customer of the sister. He's supposed to uphold the law in this newly created city, and Sarah manages to break a couple right off the bat. And there starts their relationship - as adversaries.

The secondary romance is the sister, Addie, and her beau from before, Robert. After Sarah lets Robert know Addie is there, working in a brothel, and that she doesn't want to see him, Robert comes to Deadwood as well, to start a business and work on winning back Addie.

There are several complications, and one is that Sarah has carried a secret torch for Robert all along. Another is the dearth of eligible females in the area, making Sarah attractive to several men, including the hero's younger brother. But somehow Noah comes around to realizing his own attraction to Sarah, and doesn't waste much time sparking and courting - he just flat out asks her to marry him.

And there is the mystery of why Addie ran away and became a whore - one that I guessed early on, but was still shocked when it was revealed. In fact, shocked both times it's revealed because first she tells only Robert. Robert assumes she has told Sarah and brings it up in front of Sarah and Noah after they have set a wedding date. It's shocking enough to Sarah that she sinks into a depression, and the wedding is called off.

Spencer often manages to make her heroines way too stubborn for their own good, and although I understood how Sarah could undergo a change of mind, it was still heart breaking to read and suffer through. In fact, the secret seems to affect Sarah even more than Addie in the end. Well, not really, I guess, since Addie was a whore for 5 years because of it - but she manages to heal and recognize her love for Robert anyway, while Sarah doesn't seem to be able to shake it off until the very, bitter end. Whew. I knew there had to be a HEA, but it was slow and long in coming, and heart wrenching all at once.

Hummingbird by LaVyrle Spencer ***

This is the 3rd story in the 3-story book: Hummingbird. It's also a full novel, not a short story. I had already read the 2nd story, Separate Beds.

This review contains spoilers, as in the secret identity and the resolutions. If you don't wanna know, don't read.

Hummingbird is a historical novel that takes place in Colorado, but I can't recall the year exactly - 1870s sometime. After The War. Before electricity and cars. During trains being built across the nation - and the story is that there's a train robbery, and a passenger stops the robber by shooting him, and gets shot in the process. So now we have 2 men shot - the passenger in the big toe and the robber through the upper thigh. The passenger is awake and aware; the robber is unconscious.

The heroine is an uptight spinster of 33 - her backstory is that she had a fiance at 20, but he jilted her, supposedly because she had to take care of her invalid father. Her mother, already dead at that point, was the one who drummed Puritanical ideals into her, and we learn that the real reason she was jilted was because the hero decided she was too much of a prude, and the father/invalid was the only excuse she could admit to herself. The father is now dead - the spinster holds herself a leeetle above everyone else now, and the town respects her but doesn't exactly consider her friendly or approachable. Oh - she's now out of money and needs a job.

So she is pressed into the long-term care of both the patients because the doctor is overwhelmed with work, and no one else will care for a Bad Guy. The passenger is considered a hero (not The Hero of course) for shooting the robber; the robber stays unconscious for several more days while she tends to him, doing her best to keep him alive in spite of his alleged sordid deed.

Spencer builds a believable story around her relationship with the passenger - he's gentle, kind, appreciative and the heroine believes she could have a second chance at love with him. Then he sees her in bed with the robber - well, she was did crawl into the bed and fall asleep, but it was in the line of duty, trying to keep his wound from bleeding or something - and he leaves, mad, accusing them of consorting. So now we concentrate on her relationship with the robber, who is now awake and aware but surly and rude and all things bad. Plus now he's saying he wasn't a robber at all - but he doesn't elaborate or try to convince her of his name and status. And I think his manhandling her, with her being truly shocked and not submitting - bordered on assault, not "forced seduction". It started with a couple of kisses but went past that pretty quickly, although not yet All The Way.

Of course - the Big Misunderstanding is: he's the train's owner - he's rich and he's also a photographer, and he was never robbing the train (the passenger's mistake). He does understand that he messed up her chance at love with the passenger, so when the passenger sues the train for his disability, the Hero (aka the robber aka the owner of the train) pays him off enough with stipulations that he remain in the town. He knows that will mean the heroine has another chance at love with the passenger - which she takes.

Except. Well, she didn't realize any of this (his being the owner, the passenger returning to town), and insists on losing her virginity to the Hero - ooops - and he does try to convince her it's the wrong thing, but he doesn't exactly own up to the reasons. It Happens, then she learns The Truth, and the Hero is well now and leaves. Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am.

The passenger and the Heroine do some courting, and the town accepts him and her and all is peachy except she keeps thinking he isn't making her feel the way the Hero did - he won't even really kiss her. But hey, she's ok with all that, thinking this is really her last and only chance. Plus it's nice to have the town folk being so nice to her. And she has goals and aspirations now - the shoe store, a life.

They set a wedding date; it's now the day before the wedding - enter The Hero, who just can't stay away - he seduces her, and ooops the fiance walks in on them going at it. That's ok, the Hero just grabs her and they take His Train and leave town forever. The End.

I dunno, this story just didn't 100% work for me, even though maybe it's sorta credible for the time period? Still, with Spencer's story telling and prose, I had to give it 3 stars - I didn't hate it, but really - he did physically overwhelm her waaay against her will, the way I read it, several times. Not in a "I'm so attracted to you I can't help it" way, but in a "I can do it so I will" way - I just wasn't convinced he was attracted to her. And she seemed sort of fascinated by him, but not really attracted to him, enough to give in, on those first few times. She really does just seduce him in an attempt to learn what it would be like, thinking she'll never have another chance and knowing he was well and leaving, and NOT knowing the passenger was coming back to her.

I dunno. Not heart-wrenching, and plus I still feel she did the fiance wrong.