I have read so many romances lately that I have just thrown down in disgust, for lots of reasons. When I began this one I hoped it would give me the enjoyment I found lacking in the last 3 books. It started out with a lot of promise but ended up to be just O.K. for me.
Adelaide Kelly told everyone in Connor's Crossing, Texas that she was a widow and wore the half-mourning to prove her point. She set up shop in a home she had recently inherited just outside town as the town seamstress. In order to deal with the ladies of the town, her reputation had to be impeccable.
Rede (short for Redemption) Smith was a Texas Ranger with a secret he was going to great lengths to hide, even from his employers. (Here I have to take a little side trip. This is the only romance novel I've ever read where the heroine asked the hero how he spells his name. And without any good reason for doing so either. It had to be done to explain why it was spelled as it was but why didn't the author just spell it normally? The two further references to his real name could have been left out altogether or approached from a different way and the story would not have changed. It seemed that Ms Grant went all the way around the block to explain something which shouldn't have needed explaining.) On his way to Connor's Crossing the stagecoach he and Addy were riding in was attacked and all the passengers were left for dead. Well, of course two of them survived or we would not have had a story.
It started off well. I became disenchanted with it when Addy fell for Rede in such a short time because I didn't feel he had given her any reason to love him. He knew he loved her immediately also but I didn't feel the author gave me enough time to build up those deep feelings. It seems to me it was so rushed because so much emphasis was put on the "bad guys", and they were truly bad. We were given almost as much insight into the leader of the gang and his cousins as our hero and heroine.
Sorry, I can't quite explain my dislike. Let's just say that this one will be put into my to-go box because I would never want to read it again. I came away from it feeling as if I had missed the "heart" of the story. It just did not work for me. The other two reviewers really seemed to like it but I found it totally forgetable!
