She's Gone Country

She’s Gone Country by Jane Porter is so relaxing and enjoyable to read it was like putting on a pair of old, soft jeans and your favorite t-shirt. This book is sort of mommy lit but foretells an empty nest coming and a bit of a middle age crisis.

Shey Lynne Darcy’s husband just left her for a man. They had been married for around 16 years. She has been living in New York City but decides to go back home. She took her three sons, Bo, Hank and Cooper to the ranch where she grew up in Parkfield, Texas. Even though, she could stay and support herself and the boys with her income as well known fashion model but she feels that she isn’t herself any more.

She has a lot to deal with including the fact that her son, Bo, seems to be show more following in her brother Cody’s footsteps. Cody may have been manic depressive but died before he could steer away from substance dependence. Now Bo seems to be depressed a lot lately. Her son, Hank, doesn’t like the schools in Texas and would rather stay with her estranged husband so he could go to one of the best schools in the East. Lastly, Cooper, the youngest feel that he is a looser at everything including fistfights; he loves the ranch and wants to be a cowboy.

On top of this, her old boyfriend, Dane Kelley, a rodeo champ is still in the area. Her parents sent her away to boarding school when she was young so she would be away from him. Shey wants to feel more comfortable in her life. She wants to be herself, to be happier than she has been and she had been missing the ranch for so long.

This page turning story gets you interested from the first page and you don’t want to read the last page because that will be all there is. This story has humor, wit, romance, emotional turmoil and some peaceful times.

I highly recommend this book to women who have or have had teen aged sons and/or a broken marriage. show less

Shey Darcy, a former top model, is left to pick up the pieces after her husband of seventeen years leaves her for someone else. Angry and hurt, she picks up her glamorous New York life and moves home to Texas, with her three teenage sons in tow. Back at the family ranch where she grew up, Shey attempts to make sense of what has happened while dealing with her nosy – but well meaning – brothers and overbearing mother.

When Shey was sixteen, she was madly in love with her brothers’ older friend, Dane Kelly. Fearing that their daughter was getting too involved too fast, her parents sent her away to a boarding school in California. Returning to Texas post her split, Shey runs into Dane – a rugged and handsome former bull riding show more champion – once again. While things between him and her brothers seem to have taken a wrong turn, Shey immediately knows that her affection for him has not changed. Now, on top of quelling her unhappy children and becoming reacquianted with her family, Shey is forced to confront the feelings that she has long ago put to rest.

Much of the so-called chick lit genre tends to be very predictable, so I’m always somewhat apprehensive about starting a new book. However, I was blown away by how fun She’s Gone Country was to read and it single handedly restored my faith in this genre.

Jane Porter is the author of other books like Flirting with Forty which was made into a Lifetime movie starring Heather Locklear. She’s Gone Country was my first introduction to her work and if it’s any indication of her writing style and story telling abilities, I will definitely keep reading. Shey Darcy was an inspiring character – smart, strong, sexy – and the delicious romantic tension between her and Dane only added to the book’s appeal. Was the story a bit predictable? Sure, but it didn’t make it any less entertaining or enjoyable. show less

Not my favorite Jane Porter, but I will read her any day! The main character, Shey Darcy, moves home to Texas after her marriage breaks up. She really falls into old family roles quickly and I thought an international model (and SI cover queen) would have been a bit stronger of a character. Maybe that's part of the point, but I feel like there was a lot going on and Shey didn't have time to really shine.

This was my third Jane Porter novel and like the previous two I really enjoyed it. Her conversational writing style makes the sometimes heavy subject matter easy to digest – and feels like a friend telling you a story. I love this new genre of “mom lit” – chick lit but so much better. I also really enjoy how the characters from Porters other books end up making appearances in the other books – so none of their stories ever really end – very true to life.

It didn’t take long in reading this book for me to get major Hope Floats flashbacks. I kept thinking, “haven’t I seen this somewhere before?” Woman’s marriage fails, she moves offspring from the bustling city back to the rural home of her childhood, meets man from past and falls in love…and then all is well in the world.

She’s Gone Country was a quick, light read—and even went a little deeper and darker at times, bringing up topics of homosexuality, bi-polar depression and bullying/cyber-bullying, but no issue was covered in much detail to really say that this book has a lot of meat—and was good enough that I perhaps wouldn’t mind reading more of Jane Porter.

I enjoyed reading this book, but by the end I couldn’t show more shake the feeling that Shey’s life only seemed to get better once Dane was finally a part of it. Which perpetuates the whole “a woman needs a man” cliché that I hate. I would liked to see Shey become once again the strong confident woman she was before her failed marriage … but on her own, sans the man.

Overall, not scary good but not horrible either. Rating: 3/5

http://www.read-all-over.net/fiction/chic-lit/shes-gone-country-by-jane-porter/ show less

I guess you can categorize this as a sort of Western novel. This is my first book by her and it was a pretty good one.

Shey moves back to her childhood farm/ranch in a small and I mean small town (67 residents) in TX. She originally went home for her brother Cody's funeral and then came back after her husband moved out stating he was gay and moved in with his boyfriend back in New York. She definitely didn't want to stay so here she is with her 3 boys, Hank, a sophomore in high school, Bo, the troublesome one (13), and Cooper, the youngest at 8 who's the sweetest of them all and laid back. It's not easy bringing up three boys on her own. Brick, her oldest brother, runs the farm and lives with his wife there in the complex. Blue lives in show more Dallas, with his wife and kids and he is in property real estate development.

Shey was a model in her time, even a Sports Illustrated model (she's now 39), and moved out of it since she's 39 and feels like she's washed up but gets a job here and there, and now all of a sudden she's getting calls. She runs into Dane, who is a rodeo rider, who's on disability from an injury and moved back which she definitely didn't expect. She was in love with him and they had a short lived relationship in high school until her parents found out and shipped her off to a boarding school in CA. Dane got married but now he's divorced and back. Dane, Brick and Blue used to be the best of friends, especially Brick, since they met in kindergarten and once were best friends. Something happened with their friendship, and she has a feeling that it has to do with Cody's death and his drug dependency/depression. Dane has a beef with Blue since Blue wants to develop on the huge piece of land next to his house which obviously he's against.

A lot happens in this book with the boys, Shey, Dane but as always there's a surprise element, and what I sort of expected but not all of it.

They were all teenagers by the end of the book it seems but it doesn't make sense since it was only in the space of a year since they moved to Texas but I may be wrong? Not sure. show less

she's gone country by jane porter, wow packed book about a lot of things going
on. a mom recently divorced from her husband who is now a gay man. kids go to new
york at thanksgiving to be with him. one stays behind. 2 come back and one is
enthralled with bull riding=he starts lessons. another is being bullied at school
and she finds out. a housebreak on thanksgiving and she's calling a lifelong friend
who comes to her rescue. she is a model to boot and takes off to exotic places a few
times during the timeframe, always has her mom nearby to watch the kids. she does it all
and then some. nobody can kick her down. a lot of things from the past come back to be
dealt with so she and others can move on. really liked the book but not a lot of show more dialogue,
i felt. i rate this a 5 of 5 and will now look for more books by this author. show less