, by Jessica Douglass. It's about a woman who leaves Virginia with her brother and sister to go to California. Along the way they meet a man who leads them part-way there and he's all rugged and silent and mysterious.The non-spoiler review is that it was ok. I mainly read it because the excerpt at the beginning was just so silly and cliche. Like what might happen if you were trying to write a ridiculous romance spoof. The book was a little more serious than I thought it was going to be, and when I got to the part the excerpt was from it was a lot longer and not as humorous. The main female was annoying. And a lot of their problems would have been cleared right up if she hadn't been so persistent in her delusions. I wouldn't call it a good book but it was a good time killer. The beginning especially was good. The whole thing, after the beginning, felt really rushed and half-finished. Like originally there may have been a longer book but someone decided it needed to be smaller to fit a word count limit or something. The book could have been very good if a different story had gone with the beginning. Because the beginning of the book was pretty good.
btw, I will be giving this book away if anyone wants it. As always, for free to certain people, cost of shipping for everyone else.
Spoilers here on out:
The woman is annoying for many reasons. She's very pushy and practically makes the man love her. She decides to snare him and "make sure he notices me tonight"! And when she all but shoves him down and kisses him for the first time she comes away from it proclaiming her undying love for him. Naturally, he freaks out a little and tries to get away from her but she persists. With the threat of Indians around their wagon train and an order for no one to leave camp she sneaks away to make him come "rescue" her so she can force him to spend time alone with her. When it comes to their first love scene she gets all "no, no, I don't want this, wait, yes I think I do, no wait I was wrong, ok maybe we should", and she seemed pretty ok with just throwing herself at this guy she's known for, what, 2 weeks? 3? The book takes place in the 1860s, and she was part of high society back in Virginia. Yet she just seems to give herself away without a second thought, or even a guilty thought later or a "oh what would my society friends think of me my reputation would be ruined if I was back home", nothing. And for being so upper class she's ok with working and getting dirty and actually impresses the rough men around her with how low maintenance she is. And then a long series of misunderstandings occur and even when presented with the truth she tells him he's lying and refuses to believe him and forces herself to not trust him... in the same breath she decides to marry him and sleep with him every night.
The beginning of the book starts out well enough, she and her brother and sister are on their way to California to live with their uncle after their parents died. They have to stop in Missouri cause the sister got sick. Then the guy comes along and they all head west and make it as far as New Mexico. It was during that part of the book, the trip, that things started make me roll my eyes.
She is captured by Indians, and her transition from hating them to learning their culture and their ways would have been somewhat interesting if we were shown more of it. It basically goes from one page where she hates them to the next page where she's one of them. I would have liked to have read more of that transition. Because something like that doesn't just happen overnight.
There's more to the story, like trying to take out a group of comancheros and the guy being a secret agent in that mission and stuff, and she knows he's doing this and then thinks he's truly one of them when he starts doing stuff with them, more of what I mean when I say she seems to be trying to make herself hate him. It's all very silly. She even almost kills him at one point because of the character he's playing as, and later when they're talking about it he was all "what did you want me to do!? If I'd reminded you I was just playing along they'd have killed me!" And then through a series of convenient, but foreseeable plot twists, everything about this mission is resolved within a chapter or two.
At the end of the book they decide to stay together and the book ends with them kissing. We don't know what's going to happen next. Is she going to continue to misinterpret and mistrust everything he says and does? Are they going to get married? Where are they going to live? And what happened to the her brother? At least with the sister we know she died. The brother basically just walks away and we never see him again.
. It was pretty good. I enjoyed Luke and Mara working together without their realizing it. It's one of those things where you wonder if, in later years, they were talking and happened to mention that event and go "wait I did that!" "Omg that was you?" It's just kinda cute. They're such a cute couple. Good book, excellent work, as always, but what do you expect, Zahn's the best.
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They were ok. Not the best in the NJO but they were ok. I was expecting a little more from Zonoma Sekot. Course I still have two more books in the NJO. Tahiri is intriguing, and I love Jaina/Jag. I always love Jacen, though. I'd say he's one of my favorite characters. I only vaguely know what happens to him in Legacy of the Jedi or whatever it's called, but I don't want details at all. I'll get there when I get there.