The Cowboy's Pride and Joy

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT SOME MAY CONSIDER SPOILERS.

MAUREEN CHILD

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, Harlequin, 2014.

How acquired: Bought.

First lines: “When Boston comes to Montana, it’s never a good thing.” Jake Hunter frowned into the distance.

(Goodreads synopsis below.)

My thoughts: It’s been quite some time since I read a Maureen Child book but I’ve enjoyed them (I especially recommend SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL), so I looked forward to this one. And it did not disappoint.

Jake Hunter took over running the family ranch when he discharged from service. After having spent vacations at the ranch with his grandfather when he was a child, it and the mountain in Montana are the only home he ever loved, the only place he felt comfortable and at peace. His mother runs the other family business, a media empire started by his father’s family, and she has long been after him to take his rightful place there, but the last place Jake wants to live is Boston. His mother has finally agreed to let him completely off the hook for that business, and sends her assistant to Montana with paperwork for Jake to sign, which will absolve him of all dealings with the business.

This is a Harlequin (Desire), so of course Jake is wildly attracted to Cassie, said assistant, and of course a snowstorm rolls in, closing down roads so that Cassie cannot get back down the mountain to catch her flight back to Boston the next day. You can guess what happens between them, but once the weather clears up, it’s back to real life and they part company, because it was purely physical. No emotions involved. At least, none admitted to.

Fast forward fourteen months. Cassie is now a single mother to five month old Luke. Once she realized she was pregnant, she quit her job to keep Jake’s mother from finding out. Of course she didn’t notify Jake. He’d made it all too clear that he preferred to be alone on his mountain. But her sister has stepped in and taken the decision away from Cassie, going behind her back and telling Jake’s mother, and now Jake’s mother is threatening legal action. So off to Montana Cassie goes with Luke, to enlist Jake’s help in calling off his mother.

I’m always a little leery going into a secret baby story. I need there to be a compelling reason for the heroine to not let the hero know he’s a father. But again, Maureen Child, so I was curious to see how she would handle this. And I’ve gotta say, I totally understood where Cassie was coming from, and could sympathize with her reasoning for not telling Jake. Not saying it was right, but believable. But even more, after being lambasted by her sister and brother for keeping Jake in the dark, Cassie can admit she’s had some guilt over her decision. And after spending some time with Jake again, facing his anger but also seeing the hurt in his eyes, she’s finally able to admit she was wrong. And not admit it just to herself, but to Jake.

That doesn’t mean they’ll become a happy little family though. No, there’s still a lot to sort through and a lot of clashing with each other before they can finally get their HEA. I love a hero who is grouchy and angry and prickly, and the heroine has to get past his defenses, actually gets a little past them without even trying. I loved Jake and Cassie, plus Jake’s grandfather, loved their story, loved this book.

Goodreads Synopsis: All former marine Jake Hunter wants is peace and quiet. But when his business-minded mother sends her assistant Cassidy Moore from Boston to see him about a long-standing family dispute, chaos ensues. Their attraction rages out of control as a snowstorm strands them on his Montana ranch.

Flash-forward fourteen months: Cassie can't bring herself to tell Jake she's had his child. But when his mother interferes again, Cassie rushes back to Jake…just in time for another blizzard—and for the Christmas spirit to open one reclusive cowboy's heart. 

The Boss Next Door (Harlequin Heartwarming)

ROZ DENNY FOX

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, Harlequin, 2013 (previously published as HAVING IT ALL).

How acquired: I think I got this book when I was subscribing to Harlequin's Reader Service.

First line: Sherry Campbell pirouetted in front of her sleepy roommate, seeking an opinion on her new appearance.

My thoughts: I can always count on Roz Denny Fox to deliver an enjoyable, amusing and heartwarming story that I zip through before I even realize how late I've sat up reading. Her characters are never one dimensional, including the children who are always integral to the plot and not just there. And she must research the crap out of everything, because I learned more than I ever thought I'd want to know about the process a college goes through when hiring a new dean. And if she just made all that up on the fly, then she is a very convincing writer.

I liked that the relationship between Sherry and Garrett built slowly and gradually, with both characters, but Sherry especially, continually denying her feeling and fighting them, not to mention fighting each other. There's lots of bickering between them, which I also really like. And the last chapter had me in tears.

I recommend reading ANYTHING YOU CAN DO... first, which is about Sherry's brother, Nolan. But while there are a few references back to happenings in that book, this one can still stand on it's own.

And then I recommend reading TROUBLE AT LONE SPUR, which has no relation to this book but is one of my favorites of the author's works.

Goodreads synopsis: Garrett Lock wants it all. He's a single father with a child he adores. He has a successful career. And now he wants a second chance at marriage, another shot at love—with Sherry Campbell.

Despite her desire for a family, Sherry doesn't believe that love and independence are compatible. But when Garrett becomes her boss—and her neighbor—she starts to question her assumptions, falling first for his eight-year-old son…and then for him.

Maybe with a bit of compromise and a lot of trust…you can have it all? 

Love-Lines

SHERI LANGER

Stats for my copy: .pdf, Red Adept Publishing, 2019.

How acquired: Received from Absolute Entertainment for review.

My thoughts: While I was reading this book I kept thinking it would make a great rom-com movie. While it wasn't laugh out loud funny, it was quite amusing. Fordham is a divorced mother raising her young daughter, Whitty, with the help of her own mother, Dorie, who lives with her. Whitty is ten, if I remember correctly, and a bit precocious, which happily was never pushed into plot moppet territory. Fordham dates but like so many women out there, she's not having any luck finding The One. She had The One in high school, who became The One That Got Away. And then later she married another The One, who turned out to be The Wrong One.

So now suddenly two men come into her life. First she meets David, the new principal at Whitty's school. And while she's attracted to him, he's already pretty chummy with Whitty's substitute teacher. Then she runs into her high school sweetheart, Aaron, and since said substitute teacher is hanging off David's arm half the time she sees him, she turns her attention to Aaron and rekindling their lost love.

The book is a light read with some deepness at it's core, if that makes sense. It's told in third person from Fordham's POV, so we spend a lot of time inside her head, privy to her thoughts and feelings, which is my favorite narrative device. At times it's a comedy of errors, with one thing after another going wrong for Fordham. Not far in I thought this is going to be a three star, maybe three and a half. But somewhere along the way I became very vested in Fordham's life, not to mention quite enamored of one of those two men, and I was very happy with the way the book ended. 

From what I found when I looked up the author, her first book was a YA, which I don't read much of, but I'll have to keep an eye out for her next novel.

Goodreads synopsis: What if you could find the love of your life just by reading between the lines? Single mom Fordham Price is juggling her job at a small publisher, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and her feisty mother. She wants to find time for men, but after a series of dating disasters, her relationship status is still stuck at single. As if her macchiato lite wasn’t already overflowing, a co-worker gets pregnant, and Fordham is expected to step in and deliver the company’s latest reality read from the Flowers from the Heart series. She must now supplement her own romantic misadventures with tales of cynical cat-ladies, identical-twin husbands, spunky monks, and countless other web-crawlers. As she wades through the submissions, she finds one from a widower whose story gives her tingles in all the places she forgot existed. His words draw her in until she finds herself daydreaming about him more than she’d care to admit. Could she have a love like that, or will her romantic fate be forever bound to her philandering ex-husband? 

His Runaway Son (Harlequin Superromance No. 699)

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT MAY BE CONSIDERED SPOILERS.

DEE HOLMES

Synopsis from Goodreads: Burke Wheeler. Undercover cop. Devoted father. Ex-husband. For the past few years Burke's had very little to do with his ex-wife, Abbie except insofar as she's the mother of his sixteen-year-old son, Justin. Then comes a day every parent fears and dreads. Something Burke's faced as a cop but never as a father. Justin is missing. A runaway. Burke and Abbie know they have to confront their own conflicts, lay aside old animosities, if they're going to find their son. In the process of looking for Justin, they find each other, too.They find each other all over again.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, Harlequin Enterprised, Limited, 1996.

How acquired: From a BookCrossing member.

First line: “Mrs. Wheeler, I know you're upset, but if we're going to find your son, I need a few questions answered.”

My thoughts: Not the best Harlequin I've read, not the worst. Didn't really care much for the heroine. During the marriage she wanted the hero to give up being a cop. Now they're divorced, and she still wants him to give up being a cop. Not that he was blameless in the marriage falling apart, but he went through a character transformation and realized where he'd gone wrong and I felt like he grew as a person and would not make the same mistakes. She, on the other hand, is still basically the same person she was when the book started, though less naive about what her teenage son has been up to. At the end he never said he was going to give up being a cop, so I'm not sure how long the new remarriage will last before she starts in again about that.