Review: Just Buy It
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 8, 2013
You must buy this anthology.Now that's not something I ever thought I'd say, but it's true.  Normally I'm not a huge fan of anthologies because I've found that hardly any of them are worth it.  Usually there's at least one story that makes me go UGH.  Not so here.  There IS one story that I don't feel holds up as well to the others, but it's still not BAD it's just not as good. And for 99 cents... this is an absolute steal."Nothing But Trouble" had one of the more unique story lines that I've seen.  Melanie Summers is a city girl who's been struggling to find her freedom from suffocating parents her entire life.  She's always been seen as a pretty face and she's been raised to be nothing more than a congressman's wife, but she's got a lot of spirit and started fighting for her independence young, eventually getting a degree in zoology.  Unfortunately when she wants to go on a trip to Kenya with her professor and some other students, her Dad gets wind of it, and Daddy happens to be funding the trip.  Melanie has diabetes and her parents overprotect her because of it, which means that trips to Kenya are right out.  They end up making a deal - Melanie stays 30 days in the wilderness and she can go to Kenya.So she finds the most remote man on the most remote ranch that she can, someone that her Dad shouldn't be able to discover and buy off, and heads out into the wilderness.  Stoney isn't thrilled about taking City Girl out into the woods, but his family needs the money that she offers so he does it anyway.  Sparks fly as she struggles to prove her worth to both him... and herself.  But she keeps her diabetes a secret from him, which eventually puts her in danger.This had just one short sex scene, nothing overly flowery, the main focus is on the romance - and it's fantastic!  I'm definitely going to be checking out other books by this author.  I cheered for Melanie the whole time (maybe in part because I'm at high risk for diabetes and have a lot of the symptoms) and loved that she wouldn't let something like an illness or her parents get her down.  Stoney was just like his name - hard as rock... but there's definitely a bit of a gooey core as he does his best for his family and for Melanie herself."Texas Secrets" is definitely filled with secrets galore!  Maddie's a 5 star chef that has to stay for 30 days in a house that was willed to her in Texas - a house that her grandmother used to live in!  She's finally discovered the reason that her father moved them around so much when she was growing up; now an orphan shes's thrilled to discover some roots.  Unfortunately Boone, who grew up in the house, is less than thrilled to discover that little part of his father's will.  Especially because the last city girl he hooked up with was his wife - and she hated the country... in fact, she'd be alive now if it wasn't for him dragging her out to the ranch when his dad got sick.So many secrets and little mysteries abound!  Not only that, but the tension between these two is absolutely delicious.  They both have good reasons for holding back and that just makes things even better... my heart ached for Maddie every time Boone would push her away and it ached for Boone every time he forced himself to exert some self control.  She brought sunshine to his life and he was afraid that when she left at the end of the 30 days that she was going to take the sun with her and leave him in the dark forever.  Love, love, love."Crazy About A Cowboy" didn't really speak to me as much and I think that's just because of the author's writing style.  There were a lot of lines like "Well, someone wanted him in her life.  And it was her!"  Way too many exclamation point moments like that.  Also the book was waaaaaay too long and drawn out with all the misunderstandings.  It could have stood to be a lot shorter.  There were way too many tangents with side characters to make things even harder for the couple to get it together, including a brother who wobbles back and forth between super against them as a couple, to super supportive and then back to conniving & working to keep them separated, without any reason as to why he goes back to being unsupportive.  Lisa and Sam were good as a couple and you rooted for them regardless... but in an anthology like this when the first two books are so great, this one suffered a bit by comparison."Once Upon A Cowboy"... ah goodness. After the first couple of pages, I did not want to like this book. I admit it.  Cami lies to get hired at a dude ranch as a wrangler because she's a "cowboy at heart" and it's "in her blood."  She's an idiot.  But she's a charming idiot.  And just like Holt, her sexy new employer, I couldn't dislike her even though I wanted to.  Just like I couldn't dislike the book, even though it's full of her idiocies, some of the most blatant Westernisms I've ever read and page after page of frustrating man being kind of a jerk... an honest jerk, but a jerk.  But this book has something else.  It has CHARM.  It dragged me kicking and screaming to laughter, inner cheering and a big grin on my face when I finished.  It's really kind of a stupid book with fairly obnoxious characters and crazy situations... and yet I loved it anyway.  I can't explain it, but if you read the sample and feel engaged, I say go ahead and buy it.  It's frighteningly fun."Love, Texas" is about Cassie's return to her hometown, a place where she grew up bullied because her mother was... well, kinda very strange.  She's kinda like a hippie, but even more extreme.  Off in her own little world and unable to give Cassie the love or support that she desperately needed growing up.  Cassie would have never come back, but she's been sent there by her boss (who knows nothing of her past) to buy some land from the Taylors, including sexy Will Taylor who she always had a crush on.There is so much going on here... this isn't just a love story, it's a family story.  It's also the perfect way to end the anthology because it's the best of the bunch in how complex and emotional it is.  I absolutely loved it.  Redemption is a big theme, and not just for Cassie, but for the Taylors, whom you fall in love with as much as you fall in love with Will.  He's a sexy alpha male, but he's not at all a jerk... bless him.All in all, if you like cowboy romances, at this price you'd be crazy not to buy.