The Littlest Cowboy by Maggie Shayne

This is book one of the Texas Brand series and honestly I am not motivated to continue reading it. Over Christmas I read the first book of the Oklahoma Brand series and that one was much better so I picked up this one hoping that it would follow suit but I was a bit disappointed.

Garrett Ethan Brand is the eldest of 6 Brands. At the age of 18 he was left orphaned with 5 siblings to raise. It has not been an easy road but the big lug of a man has done what he could to provide a safe home for his 4 brothers and young sister. He is now the sheriff of Quinn, TX. When the story starts Garrett discovers a small babe at his doorstep. A note tucked inside the basket says the child is his and bears his name. Garrett is floored and knows for a FACT that he has not fathered the child. He decides to keep the child in his care until social services opens Tuesday, which will give him a few days to investigate the situation and see if he can find the mother. Who comes knocking at his door is Chelsea Brennan.

Chelsea has just come from the morgue after identifying her younger sister's body. Her sister had a pendant with a picture of her child and the address to the Brand ranch and she is there to rescue her nephew from the clutches of the man who killed her sister.
Yeah, a bit off kilter this Chelsea girl.

Chelsea really never falls into my good graces. Due to her abusive father, she has a bit of a trust issue when it comes to men so it's understandable that she takes a difficult stance against the Brands but she is a bit irrational and even after baby Ethan's parentage is cleared up and Garrett is proved to be a gentle and caring man she is always an argument away from jumping down his throat. When she finally trusts the guy she flies to the other extreme and runs away from him , putting him and his family in danger.

The story also dragged for me. It could have been my lack of love for the heroine and the little interest I developed for the outcome but it took me a week to read the 260 pages of the book. I think I will order the 2nd of the Oklahoma Brands and leave the Tx clan to their own devices.

Grade:C-

Anthology - Midnight Pleasures

My daughter has been discovering Kenyon's DarkHunter series so I have been pulling out the books for the series. I discovered how I had skipped many of the stories that are in the anthologies and decided it was time to bring up my anthology quota for the 2007 year. I had hoped to read at least one anthology a month (12 a year) but I truly despise short stories and so the reading of the anthologies tend to fall on the wayside. I find that most anthologies just rush through the story and I can never enjoy a well rounded story. I think I will limit my purchases of these types of books in the future, but for now, I have ALOT of these to read.

Darkfest - Amanda Ashley: (B) This one was hard to place since the language was old but there was no indication of it's time period. The story is about Darkfest, who is considered a wizard to the village he lives with. His presence is accepted but not feared and he doesn't understand why he has the power to heal or to command fire. He is attracted to a blind girl and when her father asks for his assistance in saving his wife from a fever he bargains to bring the girl to his dominion. She accepts his bargain to stay at his castle for a year if he saves her mother. Darkfest can turn into a wolf and in the form he is able to give Channa Leigh the gift of sight. He endeavors to find a spell that will return her sight permanently and while on his quest he earns her love. It was a cute story but I found that there was a few loose ends at the end of the tale. Darkfest is becoming sensitive to light and he is also craving blood but when we reach the of the tale we are left with no explanation of his changes or whether these changes will continue to affect him.

Phantom Lover - Sherrilyn Kenyon: (A) First of the Dream-Hunter stories we get the background of the evils that lie in dreams. Erin McDaniels has been having horrendous nightmares that are driving her insane. During one of those nightmares she encounters V'Aiden who battles the Skoti demons that have been invading her dreams. In his first encounter with Erin he makes love to her in her dreams (which appears to be a big No-No). What I found fascinating about this story is how much we empathize with V'Aiden and how well drawn out Kenyon made him in just a few pages. The ending has a twist that I never saw coming and just blew me away. It redefined the way I jump to conclusions as to who the characters in a story are defined.

Under Her Spell - Maggie Shayne: (C) Melissa St. Cloud has been hired as a consultant to a TV show about witches.She is a practicing Wicca and is ready to put to right the misconceptions the show had been based on. Alexander Quinn is the producer to the show and is very curious about Melissa's beliefs but not necessarily because of the show but because of a hidden secret in his past. Seems Alex's father dabbled with dark magic and, although dead for several months, his presence is palpable and still creating havoc on a son who never knew he existed. The story was interesting but I think Shayne focused too much on details I could care less about when she could have worked more on having these two fall in love.

A Wulf's Curse - Ronda Thompson: (B) Elise Collins is running away from an uncle willing to sell her off to the first bridegroom to pay for her and when that groom has already seen several wives to the grave she knows that life on the run is safer... until she runs into Stearling Wulf. Stearling has tried to keep his past to himself and his curse hidden. He travels with a band of society's misfits in a troupe and on the stop close to London he picks up a stowaway. Even though he tries to keep his heart frozen to emotion he finds himself falling in love with the girl that is determined to stand up for herself and brave life's perils. This was just plain simple and to the point. I think there was more to say about Stearling's past and I would have liked him to stop running from his heritage but go back and help his brother's with their lives.

In the end this anthology was more of a winner than most and earn it's grade with very good stories.

Grade: B

Blue Twilight by Maggie Shayne

Last year I read most of Maggie Shayne's Twilight Series. The series has 11 stories that are covered in 7 tomes after the first few were re-issued in trade paperback. The stories have been very good, but for some reason I didn't expect much from this entry. I was not surprised or disappointed.

The thing with this installment is that it doesn't have the group of vampires we have learned to love over the first 10 stories. This one was the story of Maxine Durant and Lou Malone, the mortals that have helped our group of friends since story seven of the series. Max is actually Morgan's twin sister (Morgan being the heroine who marries Dante in Twilight Hunger) and she is a PI that explores supernatural phenomenon.

Max has had her eye on Lou since she was merely a teenager and Lou who is much older than her (40ish to her 20ish) has tried to keep the relationship platonic, but since Lou retired (he was a cop) and Max has decided to move to Maine to be closer to her sister, she has put her flirtations into high gear. He just wants to spend the rest of his retirement in peace and quiet but as he helps Max and Stormy (Max's best friend and partner in the PI firm) they get their first case, which drags him into the craziness that is Max's life.

Jason Beck had been Max and Storm's friend while growing up. Jason's sister and her best friend have disappeared in the town of Endover, NH and he has enlisted Maxie and Storm to help him find them. What they don't know is the Jason has already found his sister and she is being held captive by a mysterious man who wants to attract Maxie and Stormy into town.

The thing with this story was that I have never really felt much of a chemistry between Max and Lou. Through out the story we don't really see it develop either. It wasn't really much of a disappointment because my expectations were so low. The next installment of the series is Prince of Twilight which will be out sometime this year, tells the story between the mysterious man we met here and Stormy. Although the 'Prince' somewhat intrigues me I think I will lay Shayne's Twilight series to rest and keep the good stories I have read up to now in the forefront.

Grade: C