Review: The cliche masterpiece
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2014
“I love you, Michelle. I love you more than I ever thought I’d love anyone. I think you love me just as much as I do. I hope you do, because you’re gonna have to love me a lot to put up with me once we’re really married. You will marry me, won’t you? You’ll be my wife, have my babies?” – Taggart MartinWarning, everyone! Extreme clichés are coming this way – and they’re bound to make your sugar cravings shoot to the roof!I am NOT one for clichés – especially in romance. I like my romance the way I like my men – hard, cruel, sarcastic, showing hate but feeling love, and original. Yes, originality is important. I should know. I’m the girl who tells the guy that covers her with his jacket how much of a cliché his action is.So it stands to reason that I would be disgusted with Cowboy in My Pocket, no matter the soft spot I have for westerns. Only, I wasn’t. Far from it, actually. This was the best, sweetest romance I’ve read lately!Michelle Garrison travels to Colorado, to gather research material on cowboys. Her new book has been rejected by her editor, and she needs to do her homework before she revises the damn thing. She never expected to be caught up in one of the biggest Spring storms she’s seen – nor was getting amnesia in her plans, either. But the marriage this handsome cowboy who shelters her is speaking of seems rather welcome in her confused and dazed mind. Taggart Martin knows this marriage of convenience is a bad idea. Deceiving his dear grandmother isn’t something he finds to his tastes, but he can’t do anything else. Gramma Lenore was clear on that. If he doesn’t get married before he turns 40, the Double Eagle ranch will be donated to some whats-its-name foundation. To keep the only place he ever thought as home, he will have to put up with marrying a complete stranger. Too bad he can’t keep her much longer than he needs to convince his granny to give him the ranch – he certainly wouldn’t mind spending a little more time with the sweet, refreshing, and totally sexy redhead he now calls his bride. Can two strangers, who share so many lies with each other, find love through a marriage of convenience? And what happens when all masks are off?This book was a bundle of clichés. Like, seriously.First, the writer who has to do some research, and ends up falling in love with her… ahem, experiment. Then, the marriage of convenience. Caused because the grumpy groom doesn’t really want to fall in love and really get married, thanks to the screwed up marriage of his parents. And because his grandmother wants him to start his own family pretty soon, threatening to disown him should he not have presented her a bride before he reaches his 40th birthday. We also have an editor, slash best friend, who is in love with the main heroine. The floppy-eared dog. The trustworhty and way too clever horses that help the main characters get together. The bathtub scene. Sleeping under the stars – a common theme for cowboys in romance books. And one of my all-time favorites: the lively old folks who have been in love for more than half a century, and finally make a move, even if they’re white-haired and wrinkled now. Even the unexpected pregnancy. This story has it all!But it wasn’t bad. In fact, it was marvellous! Kate Douglas did such a good job in putting as many romance clichés as possible, while making her story so new and refreshing! I think it’s her writing – yup, this is the only explanation I can think of for the fact that something only a pink-glassed teenager would come up with ended up being so original in all its non-originality.Now, don’t get me wrong. What we’re used with in romance books isn’t necessarily bad or not wanted. But it’s not what I would pick up first thing in the morning to read. Only if I was feeling lonely – which is always around Valentine’s Day, because the atmosphere all around me gets me down, I guess. So, the fact it’s NOT Valentine’s Day means the book was good enough to devour! I think I was done with it in less than three days – and that’s only because life got in the way, otherwise a single night would have been more than enough with the obsession I had over finishing the story to see how things would work out. Even though the plot is by now familiar, Mrs. Douglas managed to twist it in a way that also seemed new to me. It takes quite the writer to make you feel the same way you would feel if you entered your kindergarten old classroom at 20 something – you know you’ve been in the room before, and yet you can sense that many things are different this time around. It makes me shiver at the mere thought of what she can actually do with a plot that is not as tried as this one – which is another reason I’m definitely checking her other books as soon as possible!Besides, if her other heroes are anything like Tag, or her heroines like Michelle, there’s no way I’m staying away from this particular writer’s brilliance!!!***I was given an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinion stated in this review is solely mine, and no compensation was given or taken to alter it.***