Jean Brashear

When I started this book, I was sure that I wasn't going to like it. The first chapter made it sound like some crazy Southern girl was going to be chasing around, looking for the reincarnation of her sister.

It got better.

Eudora ("Pea") O'Brien sets off in her eleven year-old Toyota with her total stake of $607.83, heading across Texas towards New Mexico, where she believes her sister will show up. Along the way, she picks up a kitten, an abused and pregnant teenager, and a con man.
Then the show more car breaks down just outside of Jewel, Texas, and the motley crew is forced to stay a while to work off the car repairs. But instead of getting all sappy, the rest of the story is mostly believable, and what isn't makes you want to believe it anyway. Each chapter begins with the text from a Texas road marker, which is fun. I enjoyed the way most of the characters matured, relationships were built slowly enough to make sense, and all of the stupid things the characters did were things I could see myself doing. This book would be great brain candy if you're looking for something about two steps above "chick lit." It worked for me! show less

Jean Brashear, you always come through. Up 'til now, my experiences with Nascar Romances have been disappointing to say the least, but you managed to bring just the right touch of humanity to a group of folks who too frequently come across as...well...rather unlikeable in their fictional forms.

I'm really not into chick-lit and the down-home, folksy narration this uses should make me really cranky, but every time I started to put this down and walk away I'd think "just a few more pages" until ... a few hours later I found myself at the end. Despite the fact that this is something I think I shouldn't have enjoyed at all, I found myself laughing and crying as I watched Eudora, aka Pea, leave Austin on her quest to find her sister's reincarnated self somewhere in Taos and get show more sidetracked by the menagerie of people she decides to rescue along the way. It's not so much a story of redemption as it is a story of dealing with grief and (self) forgiveness.

I received a digital ARC of this through NetGalley. show less

This book is a re-edition, published with the name "A family secret" in 1999.

When Sam Gallagher dies, he left his ranch to Maddie Collins, a stranger to the Gallagher family, to right a wrong, leaving his two sons without nothing.
When Maddie arrives at the ranch, heart broken and without any thought of what to do next, is confronted with Boone Gallagher, a surly and arrogant ex-SEAL. They dislike each other on site but when you are forced to live in the same house for 30 days what else can show more you do if not let the sparks fly?

I really liked the story. It was light but well constructed, funny but not ridiculous and the hot scenes were well developed. The characters were well built and the plot was credible.
I want to read the others of the serie. show less