Review: Love, Secrets, mixed with Family Obligations...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2014
Ms. Mc Allister took her bride story and added, what I feel was definitely a unique twist for a romance novella.  This novella added a completely different spin throughout the story. She took love, marriage, romance, and threw in family obligation's, responsibilities to the mix, which I honestly felt like I could relate to on my own personal level. She has introduced another of Marietta's long time families, the McCullough's. It is the story of Cole Mc Cullough and the fact that he has come home due to his father's health, and the fact that his family may lose everything, the ranch that has remained in his family for over 100 year's. He feels obligated to do what he must to try and save his family's home. But, he also comes home with a few secrets of his own, such as the fact that he is married to Nell Corbett, a talented and uprising TV director. Even his family knows nothing of their marriage. Cole feels obligated because his family is facing losing everything. With a second mortgage on the ranch, his dad's health in question, he knows without finding a money making venture, they will lose the ranch, that has been in his family for over 100 years. His younger sister, Sophie being a teenager, loves her family and just wants to try and help, so she comes up with a crazy idea, for them to allow the ranch be the location for a television reality show. The wildcard to all of this, is that Nell happens to be connected to the reality show. Now Nell has done everything Cole has asked her to do, she has kept their marriage a secret, even from her co-worker's. But, she has just received divorce paper's from Cole, and decides to push the executive's to relocate the reality show to Marietta, Montana. She has her own personal agenda for wanting this, and she makes it happen, now she has kept quiet long enough, and she is not going to stay that way any longer. She wants to try and talk Cole into saving their marriage, afterall it's been less than a year since they said their vow's. I myself felt it was very easy to connect to Cole and all he was dealing with, because many of us deal with the exact same thing in our everyday lives. Ms. Mc Allister made Cole very real to me, in the sense we all fell obligations to our families in many different ways. He wanted to help his family to save the ranch, help Nell by not holding her back, by moving her to Marietta. Because she could not go as far with her career, he never put himself, or his own happiness first. That I could definitely relate to. The story has many different up's and down's. It is about love, marriage, family, obligations, and even a touch of family history from Cole's grandmother Emma, better known as "Em". I think I loved her almost more than the other character's. But, it also has new love in it, not just for Cole and Nell, but for Sam, Cole's father. Which reminded me that love can be found at any age, it's not just for the young. The character's are full of life, I found myself laughing, wanting to cry, and yes even yell a few time's. But, I think the reason I liked it so much was that it had so many situation's that I, the reader could relate to in my life now. I have never before read any of Ms. McAllister's books until this one, but I am looking forward to reading more from her in the future. If you like love, romance, with some twist's and turn's along the way, you will love reading this book...