Review: McKettricks of Texas: Austin by Linda Lael Miller

FTC Disclaimer: Digital galley obtained from publisher via Netgalley

The final book in the McKettricks of Texas trilogy left me deciding that I'm pretty well done reading anything by Linda Lael Miller. Which is a shame. So, this'll be a short and not so sweet review.

As with the first book in the series, Tate, infidelity plays a large role in the plot of this book. It's one of the few tropes that I despise. With a passion. And this book had perhaps the lamest excuse I've ever heard for cheating. Ever.

Austin, our hero, broke his then-girlfriend, Paige's, heart because he was scared by what he was feeling and wanted her to break up with him. So, instead of saying "Hey let's break up," He cheats on her with her high school nemisis and makes sure she finds out about it--sadly by seeing them together.

I'm sorry, but that's a character trait time cannot fix. It's lame. It's weak. It's cruel. And, at least for me, it's unforgivable. Which makes me think the heroine is TSTL to forgive him. And kills the romance completely for me. I'm all for second chances, but sometimes the hero is irredeemable. Austin remains immature, reckless, and pretty well concerned only about himself. Which in my estimation makes him a poor choice for redemption.

As for the suspense part of the plot...it wasn't suspenseful. At all. And the resolution was horribly unsatisfying. 

My Grade: C-/D+

Review: McKettricks of Texas: Garrett by Linda Lael Miller

FTC disclaimer: Digital galley provided by the publisher through Netgalley

Spoiler Alert: this review will probably contain some minor spoilers

It's been months since I read the first in this trilogy. I really didn't like the first installment in the series, Tate, but fortunately, this one was much, much better.

Linda Lael Miller continues with her hit-you-over-the-head lecturing about animal welfare as well as the obvious McKettrick/Remington pairings. But at least this one didn't contain a history of infidelity--something that is on my short list of plot elements that turn my stomach.

It could be I enjoyed this book more because the characters were less self-involved. Julie is a high school drama teacher and Garrett is a senator's aide. At the beginning of the novel, they each have their own careers--their own lives. There is no deep, dark, tortured history between the two--although they are familiar with each other through the previous (failed) romances of their two respective siblings.

Review: McKettricks of Texas: Tate by Linda Lael Miller

As always, plot spoilers are contained within....you've been warned.

There's just something about modern Western romances that I love. Maybe because cowboys have a certain romantic mystique without having to deal with the hardships that faced those living in the 19th century American west. Or because most cowboys are hardworking, crazy or both. And it helps to have an author like Linda Lael Miller writing about them, because she knows her stuff. Unfortunately, McKettricks of Texas: Tate didn't live up to expectations.

There's no question that Miller nails the cowboy/rancher parts of this story, but I was a little surprised by the conflict in this book. I haven't read a LLM book that dealt with infidelity before. Maybe I missed one in her backlist, but that was new to me with this author. Sure, the characters in question weren't married at the time but there was every expectation of being so.

At Home in Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller

As a disclaimer, I should probably admit that I am not much of a Harlequin/Silhouette type of reader. I find the stories too short to truly develop memorable characters with any complexity or depth. It takes a rare author (like Nora Roberts) to make that particular line appeal to me. Linda Lael Miller is one of those authors.

At Home in Stone Creek is a Silhouette Special edition which is connected through secondary characters to previous books in the Silhouette line. And despite the fact that the author is REALLY good at what she does, it fell short of really engaging me. I love the characters. I love the overall plot. But as usual with the length-constrained format, there were parts of the book that felt rushed. In this case, the entire  confrontation with the bad guy felt incredibly contrived and not at all suspenseful. There was no tension in the scene (that's right, singular) at all.

And while I understand the fact that we're dealing with characters interwoven throughout several previous stories, the secondary characters literally overwhelmed this tiny book. They weren't really necessary, and the main characters would have benefited from those extra pages.
 
Still, it's a nice, quick read in typical Silhouette fashion. And it does add one more piece to the O'Ballivan (and McKettrick) world. I just think that there was a little too much going on for the page count.

My Grade: B-