Leigh Greenwood

Romantic? Check.

Swaggering, strapping cowboys and roguish outlaws? Check.
(And maybe a few bull-headed men who need tending to.)

Strong female characters? Check, check, and check.
I love an anthology, especially when they include beloved authors, so I was happy to get my hands on this collection of romance stories. All are set in western settings, where times are tough, life is both simpler and hard, and the snow is falling because the Christmas holidays are approaching. Some stories are show more sweetly romantic while others bring a little more heat!
Linda Broday brings back a character with whom I fell in love in one of her previous novels (which you needn’t have read to enjoy this one) and near broke my heart with what she puts poor Rebel through!

Margaret Brownley’s tale of a woman rallying her town to bring Christmas to its children was perhaps my favorite. It was a story of love and sacrifice and warmed my heart.

If you like a little more heat to your romance stories, author Amy Sandas delivers it in droves in her story of a strong, resilient woman who rescues an outlaw in a snowstorm – and what follows as they are snowed together.

Anna Schmidt captures the frustration of a female doctor of the early 1900s in her tale “One Snowy Christmas Eve” as her first love stumbles, sick to death, into her practice. Nursing him back to health opens old wounds and stirs old flames.

Ultimately, all six stories paint pictures of hard times, love enduring and winning in the end – perfect for curling up under a cozy blanket but enduring enough for any time of the year. show less

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Laurie's husband has just died and the only thing she is feeling is a sense of sweet freedom. Her husband Noah was incredibly controlling and looked for ways to constantly demean her. However, even from the grave Noah has found a way to command Laurie's life as his will is set up to give his brother Norman authority to dole out the estate money how and show more whenever he sees fit. As Norman is quite possibly worse than Noah, Laurie is justifiably upset. When Laurie finds out the new rancher, Jared, in town was denied a loan for a herd of cattle he wants, she approaches him with a deal. With money Laurie has secretly acquired, a plot point from To Have and To Hold book one in the series, she offers Jared the money in exchange for a fifty percent partnership in his ranch. This partnership will provide Laurie with an independent means of income and the sense of freedom she craves. While giving up half of his ranch profits is the last thing he wants to do, Jared also can't say no to money that will buy the cattle he desperately wants and not to mention the way he feels when he looks into Laurie's eyes. With their business partnership sealed, Laurie and Jared start to realize that keeping pleasure out of the mix is going to be harder than they thought.

Along with medievals it seems like westerns have went the way of the buffalo in the last couple years, so it was fun to visit this time period and atmosphere again. The author does a wonderful job of setting the scenery and immersing the reader into everyday American western settlers. In fact, it may be too good of a job as a lot of the story is devoted to this which left the main couple's relationship faded to the background. It also created a slower moving story; it wasn't boring, just a more attention to everyday life with nothing hurried. With my fast talking Northern ways though, maybe this pace was perfectly fitting for a western ;) If the white horse on the cover doesn't tip you off, this story is a little bit of a throwback to older romance books. The prose had a tendency to veer towards flowery and purple but is not of the bodice ripper variety, more of a gently romantic tone. There were also a couple times when I thought this could have been edited down to make it more streamlined, some repeated lines especially dealing with describing Jared as sensual, but after the 32% mark the story started to come together and I quit focusing on the technical aspects and became more involved with Laurie and Jared.

Laurie's anger and pain will reach a tender spot for every woman as we all will be thankful of the equality and advantages our modern times provide us with that Laurie did not have. She develops a strong backbone in negotiating with Jared so that she can have control of her life in the future but displays a heartbreaking vulnerability when it comes to Jared expressing emotions for her and feelings of self-worth. Jared is sensitive and caring but has a strong resolve to make his ranch a success that keeps him busily occupied and a little late to the party about how much he cares about Laurie now that she is in his life. Their romance is subtle and tender with both very leery as to how to proceed but find they can't ultimately live without one another.

There are a couple plot points that carryover from book one but I never felt lost or confused by them and a couple side stories involving Jared searching for two missing brothers and a town stocked with secondary characters looking for romance. If looking to read a western this definitely has the feel for one and would provide a nice pleasant read about two individuals trying to make it in that world who come together To Love and To Cherish. show less

Bought a whole bunch of Greenwood books years and years ago and apparently read them (according to my Kindle app) but had no memory of them at all. I was in a western romance mood lately and don't have a lot of westerns to choose from, so figured I'd try these again.

This one is pretty good, if you can ignore some dated attitudes and tone that are Not Great by 2022 standards. Nothing outstanding or super memorable, but a good romance.

I liked the heroine, Isabelle. She has a pretty convincing show more transformation from prim and proper lady, fairly helpless and sheltered, to learning how to live on the trail and handle a crowd of orphaned boys. She really makes an effort and toughens (and lightens) up and I liked her.

The hero, Jake, is a little too domineering and crude, especially early on. He takes the whole rough, crude, set-in-his-ways bachelor (with a heart of gold, of course) thing far enough to be off-putting for a while, but he does improve over time. He claims to be a loner who is only out for himself and doesn't want to be tied down, but of course eventually finds himself not only responsible for but caring for the whole band of orphans and Isabelle. A little predictable, but likeable by the end.

Their relationship is well written, as both of them gradually change - Isabelle growing stronger and less helpless, and Jake stepping up to responsibility and caring for the boys - which also gradually changes their opinion of each other. They start out with a pretty strong mutual dislike, which is mostly believable but slightly undermined by a somewhat over the top dose of insta-lust. Hating each other while also wildly attracted to each other can be a fun dynamic and it mostly works here, though the attraction is maybe a little heavyhanded.

The supporting cast of orphans, shepherded west by Isabelle and on their last chance to find families and redemption, are mostly an engaging bunch, with distinct personalities and relationships among themselves. (They of course are the protagonists of the rest of the series.)

So overall, reasonably enjoyable. There are, however, a few aspects that have aged rather poorly.

I haven't read a lot of western romance, mainly just these and Lorraine Heath, but in both of them the heroes fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, which is...unfortunate (even if probably accurate for Texas at the time). It's generally some handwave-y "fighting for my home & family" (though one went as far as "way of life") and general "war is bad and traumatic" stuff while totally sidestepping the major issues involved.

There's also Night Hawk, one of the orphans who is half-Commanche and speaks in rather cringey broken English - he's treated well by the central characters but the general attitude toward Native Americans is very "cowboys vs Indians" and stereotypical, and Hawk and Zeke, the black teen rescued from Jake's abusive neighbors, seem somewhat less fleshed out than the other boys.

I liked the plot, most of the characters, and the romance itself a lot, but there's definitely some elements that haven't aged well. show less

Naomi and her family is heading west (but are the entire town running from something? *insert music of almost doom*. First we have weather that does what it wants and not what the travelers want. Dangerous rivers, killer snakes and do not forget Indians. The whole caravan is also very tense cos of something that must have happened for them to leave it all behind. Which was a bit extreme but hey their choice.

In comes Colby, all around nice guy who knows about the land and agrees to help these show more poor lost travelers. Like I said he was a good guy, but he has some issues from his past that makes a romance not in the cards.

Romance. Of course there is romance! Just cos the heroine do not trust Colby and Colby is all arghh issues from my past, does not mean there will not be romance ;) I liked that it happened slow. They became friends and sparks slowly started to form. But they had some things to work through first.

All in all a nice western romance that shows the hard life and how everyone had to work together to survive. show less