Book Review: The Wrong Cowboy by Megan Ryder

 

The Wrong Cowboy is Megan Ryder’s first story in her new Granite Junction series.  She effectively pulls readers into the back stories and ordeals of the aspiring brides and grooms residing in fictitious Granite Junction based in the hills of Montana.  Her hero and heroine in this installment are Emma Holt, a school councilor during the school year and a waitress through the summer, and Gabe Buchanan, a successful mystery writer.  The two meet through their mutual connection, Cam Miller.  He is a prosperous rancher in Granite Junction.  Fortuitously, he is Buchanan's cousin and a good friend to Holt.  

While alluding to a love triangle, Ryder touches on such tropes as finding love after one's compass has gone awry, a string of one night stands with the friend of a childhood crush turns into happily ever after, and a small town romance turns into a life plan.  The characters relate to the reader on a personal level, dealing with struggles that many identify with and have experienced.  Such as, Holt creates a fantasy around her childhood crush Miller though Miller shows no romantic leanings for her.  Buchanan feels like an unwanted fruit cake at his family's gatherings, as his family treats him like a little boy indulging in a hobby or favorite pastime when it comes to his novels.  Miller is saddled with a ranch he inherited but being a rancher is not his forte or his desire.  He is struggling with failing his family while withdrawing from townsfolk that have ostracized him for his father's drunk driving accident.  The 3 main characters are a big ball of emotional turmoil and conflicting thoughts.

The witty conversations, colloquial anecdotes, and pearls of wisdom all enable the story to flow easily for the reader and offer precious insight into human nature.  Bouts of tension and drama are sprinkled with humor and charm.  A few moments in the tale are sluggish and could be focused more thoroughly but the multiple points of view between the 3 characters in the triangle give readers awareness of who the characters are.  This technique keeps readers involved in the characters plight and outcome. Discovering their outcomes is what, inevitably keeps the reader stringing along and engaged in the tale.

Visit:  https://www.meganryder.com

Book Review: Rochester Trilogy by Skye Warren

Author Skye Warren is best known for her erotic love scenes, and although this trait is prevalent throughout her Rochester Trilogy series, she concentrates so much more time on developing the character's personalities, behavioral patterns, and thought processes.  She invests a great amount of the read on building up a compelling thriller, crime drama and modern romance in this series.

 

Warren's Rochester Trilogy consists of Private Property, followed by Strict Confidence and concludes with Best Kept Secret.  A small footnote is that Warren grabs characters from the trilogy and continues the saga with Hiding Places and 1001 Dark Nights Behind Closed Doors.

There is a film noir quality about the series, with the first book set in an ominous mansion on a cliffside of a quaint town in Maine.  The next two books move to a cozy inn by a beach in the town.  Warren's description of the mysterious and Gothic atmosphere sets the scene for readers, plunging them into the center of an emotional whirlwind.

Written in first person, veritably each character holds a conversation with the reader, revealing vulnerabilities and well kept secrets to the reader, who enjoys discovering each of their stories.  A bond is formed between the reader and the protagonists, Jane Mendoza and Beau Rochester, as Warren weaves into the narration a number of pearls of wisdom about life's lessons and struggles.  All of which resonate with the reader, opening a level of human consciousness.

In the vane of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 popular fiction Jane Eyre, whose characters, Jane Eyre, an orphan turned governess, and Edward Fairfax Rochester, a wealthy landowner in North England who is in need of a governess for his ward Adèle, Warren gives this Gothic prose fiction a modern twist in her Rochester Trilogy. Mendoza is hired by Beau Rochester to be a governess to his niece Paige Rochester, whose father is presumably killed in a boat accident along with her mother, who is also believed to have been killed.  

Unlike Jane Eyre, Warren's trilogy shares a handful of characters with the reader.  This aspect makes the progression of the story easy to follow, while Brontë's tale had the reader moving in various directions with the introduction of many new characters that created tangents along the story.  All the characters in Warren's trilogy lead the reader back to Mendoza and Rochester's relationship.  Their passion is intense and their strength and will is cavalier.

Warren ends the first two books on cliffhangers, which keeps the reader anxious to discover what happens next.  Smartly, she closes the third book of the trilogy with a happily ever after ending that ties all the loose ends and soothes all the mixed emotions to a credible new beginning for the protagonists.


Skye Warren: https://www.skyewarren.com/

 

Book Review: On the Line: A Second Chance Sports Romance by Julia Connors

Written in first person, On the Line: A Second Chance Sports Romance by Julia Connors is the fourth installment of her Frozen Hearts series.  Set in Park City, Utah at the start and finishes in Boston, Massachusetts, the story traces the saga of professional figure skater turned marketing expert and stay at home mom, Lauren Manning-Emerson and professional ice hockey player turned sports agent, Jameson Flynn.  From start to finish, the read moves like a saga, though it is meant to be a cozy modern romance.  The reader experiences all the emotions that go through someone in a lifetime with just this single story.

The hero and heroine each have multiple layers to their characters, supported by strong family ties and good friends.  Connors takes the readers through the trials and tribulations of these characters, building a bond between the readers and these characters.  Their ordeals and the human strength they share with the audience is enlightening.  Granted, sometimes, Flynn seems too good to be true, and other times, Emerson seems to be over-reacting to unsuspecting surprises.  Still, the window into these lives resonates a realistic vibe.

Readers can discern Connors created a story that she put a great deal of thought into, applying care and attention to the details of the characters circumstances and situations.  Connors is an effective author in hooking the reader and keeping the story engaging.

Julia Connors

Free giveaway of ebook The King Maker

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