Monday, December 31, 2012

Book Review: Wild Texas Rose

Wild Texas Rose
By Jodi Thomas
Berkeley, 2012
English, 320 pgs

Description:
Twenty-five year old Rose McMurray may be beautiful, smart and capable of running her adopted family's ranch at Whispering Mountain, but she's backed away from marriage three times without giving any reasons. Everyone thinks Rose is a coward, afraid of any adventure, including falling in love. She's never done a single wild or reckless thing in her life...until now.

Duncan McMurray, like Rose, was adopted into the family. As a Texas Ranger, he swears he'll never settle down and marry. Duncan has been Rose's guardian angel since they were kids but now, for the first time in their lives, he's the one who has put her in danger. So, somehow, and without letting Rose know, he has to protect her from an outlaw gang determined to kill her. He's convinced that her heart can't take the stress if she knows. The only question is, can his heart take the nearness of her?

When opposites collide, the adventure into love begins...

Review:
I have mixed feelings on this one. Jodi Thomas has become one of my favorite authors and I look forward to losing myself in her books for a couple of days while I forget everything else and read. This one was good, but I didn't really feel like it was a love story about Rose and Duncan. They just kind of did a "well, we have no one else..." and decided to pursue a relationship.

The other stories, Abe and Sara and Killian and Victoria, really receive the bulk of the attention and they are completely enjoyable and satisfying story lines. Abe and Sara is actually kinda steamy and chaste at the same time...you just have to read it to understand...

Rose gets a fair amount of action when she's forced into a situation to protect Victoria and another to protect Duncan. But I'm not sure I'd call her actions wild or reckless. She's pretty calm and keeps her head in her situations.

I had figured out the surprises in the story before they were revealed and it didn't change my enjoyment one bit. I actually was looking forward to when it was revealed! However, there was a letter mentioned that was never dealt with in this book. I'm betting it's coming in the next though.

This is only my second Whispering Mountain book to read, but when I get a chance, I'm going to go back and start at the beginning. I kinda feel like I'm missing parts of the story by picking up where I have. I'm not disappointed about that at all...looking forward to it!

I received a copy of the book from Ms. Thomas in exchange for a review. No additional compensation has been received and I was not required to write a positive review.