Review: enjoyable
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 11, 2012
not a bad book and i would not tell anyone NOT to read it. i did like learning about the racing lifestyle and the pressures of owning and raising horses. i would have liked to known coke mcallister, murdered father of main character dakota, longer.the action is set in new mexico and arizona and i enjoyed 'being' there.  dakota is a good study in thoughtful determination, intelligence, and wanting to do the right things.  she's kind, likable and strong. clay pearce is her ex-husband. they haven't seen each other in 10 years.  now that coke is dead, dakota is muddling through selling the ranch to pay off debts.  coke had suffered several accidents and a maliciously suspicious run of bad luck; but there was never proof of any wrong-doing.  his death is ruled a suicide - which voids his life insurance. we know it's murder because we sort of witness it, but we don't know the killer. tthe story is kinda heavy on the romance aspect. i knew romance would be a big part of the storyline when i started the book.  since i'm not a big romance reader - i simply skipped  or skimmed those paragraphs or pages.there are lots of interesting sub-plots and minor characters.  clay's sort of girlfriend, the ridiculously rich and model-beautiful, rita, is an annoying, but amusing, nemesis for dakota.i pegged the various bad guys as soon as i met them and guessed their motives...but the characterizations were realistic. i did guess the murderer, but not immediately.