Cowboys Make Better Lovers [Tapa blanda]

A fish-out-of-city lonely woman falls in love with a hunky-country-world-renowned-photographer ex-playboy turned father-to-their-orphaned-niece-and-nephews. Lots of characters, lots of potential, and, unfortunately, lots of problems. And that's the problem with the story. Had this novella slowed down, taken its time and fleshed out a story over several hundred pages, it would have been much better. Or had it scaled back its ambitions in the number of characters and too many personal issues, it would have been much better. As it exists, the length of the work truncates its scenes down to a few essential ones, which we are asked to accept at face value because we are not given the necessary scenes that build up to and connect everything. The children are treated more as props than characters in the story and never fleshed out as individuals. (See how I look holding the baby? Aren't I great mother material, now let's give her back to the other woman to really take care of her. After all, she might spit up on me). Despite serious plotting and development problems, and the lack of much-needed scenes, the writing shows promise. The book feels like a practice run at writing a novel. Some corny dialogue, but generally not too annoying. Finally, I don't think a Stetson and an old barn make a man a cowboy. I'm pretty sure the man is supposed to ride horses and wrangle cattle too. But that's tied to the underlying problem with the whole book--the reader is told a lot of things, shown few.

The book is fast. It is a few days from 'hey I'm here to see the kids' to 'HEY...so now we are in love lets do it in the barn'. I don't normally mind that but this time I wanted more out of the story. If you're gonna give me a sex book by all means lets get to it but if you're gonna make me think about the welfare of three young children then give me more of the family dynamic. I didn't hate the book but it could have been so much more than what it is. I was left really feeling nothing for the characters and not really caring about the kids. The baby was only in the story once and there was no real bonding between them. It was not far fetched enough to be a fantasy or made up story but it wasn't real enough to make me care. If that makes any sense. I wanted to know more about the father/daughters relationship. It not enough to tell me about his playboy ways and how hes changed I want to really see it. I wanted to see the father/daughter reconciliation and the kids adjustment to having her there. It is okay but it really could have been great.

Sarah Collins has plans for her life and those plans don't include becoming a guardian to her infant niece and nephews following her only sister and her husband's deaths in a car accident. She loves the kids, just isn't prepared to be a parent but isn't about to simply hand them over to her brother-in-law Raif either - not without paying him a visit and seeing for herself that he is ready, willing and able to handle the job and leave his playboy lifestyle behind.

Renowned photographer Raif Manning is more than willing to settle down and assume guardianship of his niece and nephews. He's bought a house near his sister in Kansas, where he intends to raise the children and he's hard at work restoring the old house into a home.

Sarah fully anticipated arriving at Raif's home, seeing that the kids are in good hands and signing over full guardianship to him, only when she arrives it's obvious that the house has been sadly neglected and it's filthy. There's no way she can in good conscious leave the children in such conditions. She's put off this visit and dealing with the legalities involved with guardianship of the kids for three months and now the kids have bonded with Raif and view her as the `wicked witch.' It shouldn't matter, she's only there to make sure that they're being cared for properly.

She has no desire to uproot them from the stability they've found with Raif but she isn't willing to allow them to be raised in such substandard conditions either. Sarah doesn't learn that Raif had just bought the house until after she goes on her uppity tirade. Sarah's determined to stick around and watch as he starts to get the house cleaned up and see how he is with the kids but Raif has some stipulations of his own - if she's going to play social worker then she can stay in the house with them - that way she won't miss a single thing. Neither of them anticipates the emotional attachment they begin to develop for each other. While Raif knows his desire and affection for her are far beyond just an infatuation, Sarah has a fiancé and life in California that she longs for but she'll soon discover that her neat and orderly life isn't all it's cracked up to be and sometimes you have to go with your gut instinct and allow yourself to fall in love - even if you know the man you fall for isn't going to meet with your father's approval.

Kelly Wallace tells quite a charming tale with COWBOYS MAKE BETTER LOVERS. At first Sarah struck me as an uppity snob who believes that she knows what's best for everybody but as I read through the story I began to see the cracks in her persona and found her to be genuinely likeable. Raif is downright brutally honest and that's something which Sarah isn't used to with her father or her fiancé. There's a chemistry present between Sarah and Raif right from their very first meeting that sizzles the pages. Add the emotional factor of deciding the fates of the three children and you have a story that will keep you turning pages anticipating the upheaval that Sarah and Raif experience while trying to maintain a stable front for the kids. This is a wonderful feel good story and while it does have children involved, it's Sarah who really does a lot of `growing up.' Beautifully written Ms. Wallace.

Chrissy Dionne (courtesy of Romance Junkies)