Holding Out for a Hero
Phyllis CampbellHistorical romance
Available from Champagne Books
ISBN: 1897261578
August 2006
| Summer Bennett was a tomboy until she was sent to a finishing school but she still has enough spunk in her to defend herself and the people in the stagecoach she's in. Jessie, her sister Violet's fiance, remembers her as the kid who took every opportunity to get him into trouble, which is why he isn't relishing her arrival. When the stagecoach is an hour later, he rides off in search of it, thinking a wheel had broken. Instead he arrives to see a woman driving the stagecoach and shooting outlaws chasing and shooting at the coach. He helps stop the outlaws and is there to catch the woman when she falls into a faint. She has a wound on her shoulder and a goose egg on her head so he takes her upon his horse to get her to the doctor. He's been told she's Summer but he can't help but recall that the Summer her knew never looked so female.
When she wakes up, she's the Summer he remembers, hating him and stubbornly determined to get town without his help. Even though she still thinks him a good-for-nothing, she also likes him, finding him changed into an attractive man. Unfortunately, he has bad news for her. Her father had an accident that hurt his legs; he hasn't been able to walk since and the livery he owns has been failing. Now Summer might have to go back to some of her tomboy ways to help keep the family business going. And Jessie believes she still intends to stop him from marrying her sister. When Summer notices that Jessie and Violet act strange for a couple supposed to be in love, she wonders if perhaps there's something strange going on and intends to find out. This was a classic love-hate romance where the main characters were almost constantly in conflict. Summer, at first, seemed like a snob in her continued stubbornness that Jessie wasn't good enough for her sister; she was also occasionally foolish in the extreme, and very hardheaded. Jessie often acted badly when he baited Summer, though sometimes she deserved it. Holding Out for a Hero had some very interesting twists and, despite the fights, was a good, slightly sweet western romance. The writing was tight and never faltered, though it could have very easily. It's one of the few western romances I've read that had only a tiny part of the book dealing with outlaws of some kind; the book focused primarily on Jessie and Summer's discordant romance. I would definitely recommend Holding Out for a Hero to western romance lovers.
Overall rating:
Reviewer: Tara Black |
