After a breakup with one of them, Andie goes to Vegas with her ditzy but fun friends Candice and Kelly, and finds herself in a drunken, passionate one-night stand with cowboy Gavin “Mac” MacKenzie. Two years later, she’s got her lifeplan back on track, is engaged to the ambitious, socially-climbing Bradley, and is getting ready for her wedding – until she discovers that somehow, she’s already married.
Can she convince Mac to give her a quick annulment or divorce, before Bradley finds out her embarrassing secret? Once she gets to know him and his family, will she want to? And will she figure out that having a lifeplan isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be?
This is rather an amusing premise for a romance novel, and contains a good deal of humor to balance the erotic tension between Andie and Mac. Women with a weakness for sexy cowboys, and no doubt there are more than a few of those out there, will find Mac quite appealing in most respects. The author also does a good job of rooting Andie’s lifeplan in her past, giving her a backstory that makes her need for a plan and focused goals not only believable, but sympathetic. The sex scenes sizzle, and the erotic energy is palpable. The writing is smooth and full of snarky wit and charm.
The characters, however, are just a bit caricatured – the sassy secretary, the ditzy best friends, the yuppie boyfriend, the heroic cowboy, the jealous would-be rival, etc. – and there is very little depth to most of the characters. Additionally, there are a couple of disturbing episodes which make Mac less sympathetic than he ought to be – a gentleman does not ever take advantage of a lady (in order to have sex with her or to marry her) while she is not sober enough to give consent, and certainly does not later try to hold her to a contract into which she entered while extremely drunk.
There is another sex scene later on, which, while both parties are at least sober, involves the assumption that her repeated “no” actually means “yes,” which is also, to say the least, ethically problematic. It struck me personally, also, that perhaps including a scene involving branding and castration (of calves) in a romance novel might be less than wise, as it tends to inspire juvenile humor which then tends to detract from the intensity of the romance.
This is a pretty standard example of the romance genre, with a few touches of bright humor to enliven it, though it does contain a few rather disturbing elements. If you daydream about cowboys and horseback rides into the sunset, and can refrain from taking it too seriously, it’s an entertaining piece of mind candy.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader