LynneC’s review of  Illegitimate Tycoon (Bad Blood Collection, Book 6) by Janette Kenny
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Jul 11

I’ve been reading this series hoping to find another gem like the Caitlin Crews book. Although this one doesn’t quite reach it,  for me anyway, it’s still a great read and a different take on the usual Modern Romance line.

By this stage in the “Bad Blood” series, it’s becoming obvious that the authors are trying out slightly different, edgier themes. In this one the hero and heroine have been married five years and are in love with each other. So what’s the problem?

Their careers are tearing them apart.

Rafael is the illegitimate son of William Wolfe. His father deliberately made him feel left out, deliberately taunting him and his mother about his illegitimate status. His siblings made him welcome. But, as a result, he wants to make a family of his own. Rafael has a Brazilian mother, but he was brought up mainly in England, it appears, near Wolfe Manor. He’s a successful businessman and a maker of top-level electronic phones and gadgets. His business has needed constant maintenance and he’s in the habit of traveling often.

Leila is a top model. She works hard on her career and is proud of what she’s achieved. She has a controlling mother, but Rafael rescued her from that and gave her the confidence to soar free. Her job takes her all over the world.

At the start of the story, they meet at a film premiere. Rafael’s newest phone is featured in a new film, he and his brother Nathaniel have financed and directed an indie film, and Leila has a perfume to promote. He reflects that they have met a handful of times in the last year and he wants more.

While Rafael is an alpha male, capable of alpha jerk behaviour, during the course of this book Leila comes to know him better, learn about the childhood he’s never quite left behind. If she’d given in to him, this would have been a C, maybe a D review, but it isn’t. The compromise works, but with a few rough edges.

Kenny lets the reader know enough about Rafael to understand why he sometimes behaves with less-than-perfect sensitivity. That kept me reading, while if I didn’t know the facts about him and how he reacts to it, I might have given up. The line is changing its remit, somewhat, from a Vogler-type story where the heroine is on a quest for a prize – the prize being the hero – to a more richly developed story that involves the hero and the heroine, where both contribute to the internal plot. I love it.

It’s certainly refreshing to read a story about a couple who have problems in their marriage and seek to redress them. They separate and come together, their busy lives are explained enough for the reader to sympathise. And on a less exalted level, we all have problems like this, or most of us do. The answer in this case is to compromise.

There is another event, also typical for the line, but it’s treated with an interesting twist and it forces Leila to face a problem she’s had for most of her life. She’s an anorexic. I absolutely love the way this is treated in this book. Her modeling career isn’t the cause of her problem, but it doesn’t help. She’s had treatment, but the author has obviously done a lot of research, or knows someone involved, because her understanding of this condition furthers mine and helps me to see how anorexia can impact on someone’s life and their subsequent life after they’ve recovered. She doesn’t pull any punches either. Rafael knows that Leila has had this problem and is still fighting the aftermath, and he has also done his research. He worries about her.

The only thing that really mars my enjoyment of this one is that it isn’t as carefully edited as the others in the series. While it’s easier to cope with the cover ballsup, typos and tense inconsistencies are more difficult to ignore. The author uses “that’s” when she means “that was,” for instance. And several times the wrong word is used.

Talk of the cover reminds me. They’ve done it again. The heroine on the cover is a brunette, but Leila is a blonde.

This book is definitely worth your time, and I’d definitely give it an A.

Grade: A

Summary:

Rafael…Illegitimate. Brooding. Proud.
Always an outsider, Rafael spent his life looking in on his priviledged Wolfe siblings. Determined to create the lifestyle denied to him, Rafael worked his way to the top – his marriage to beautiful Leila the icing on the cake! Now his marriage is crumbling. Rafael chased a rainbow – but made his wife feel like she was a trophy… Now it will take all of his courage to win her back…

No excerpt available.

Sandy M’s review of A Cowboy Christmas by Janette Kenny
Historical Western Romance published by Zebra 1 Oct 09

This book started out really good for me. I immediately liked the writing. Ms. Kenny does a terrific job of getting all things western down on paper. But at about the three-quarter mark, I started getting a little antsy, I never seemed to really get totally invested in the hero and heroine. And the reason I picked this book up is for the Christmas aspect, but that didn’t seem to come across all that well either.

Ellie Jo has found her father on the Crown Seven ranch and she’s determined to have one last Christmas with him before she heads to San Francisco and a teaching job at a girls’ school. She’s just lost her fiance when her awful past reared its ugly head, so starting new in California is hopefully the right thing to do. Taking over for the ranch’s cook, Ellie does her best to prepare meals for the ranch’s owner, Reid Barclay, but someone is sabotaging her every step of the way.

She’s the only woman in a very long time who has appealed to Reid, but with his past hanging over his head, forgiving himself for that past is not something he can do, and now with people getting closer and closer to the elusive Slim, Reid can’t offer a thing to Ellie for the future. Besides, he can tell she’s got secrets too and she’s refusing to talk to him about it all. And she certainly isn’t a cook, as evidenced by the meals she puts on his table, but when he touches her and kisses her, he’s more than ready to forgive her her deceit.

On top of all of this, Ellie finds out Reid is engaged and it’s up to her to prepare the wedding feast and decorate the ranch house for the holiday festivities. But what engaged man acts the way Reid does, stealing kisses and embraces. And why can’t Ellie tell him to stop when she finds herself on the receiving end of all that pleasure? They’re both in a difficult bind with no good solution all the way around. And, of course, there is a villain that has his hands in every part of the goings-on with all the characters, and I have to say that I did like Reid’s solution in taking of care of that jerk.

I liked the majority of this book. The characters start out to be quite interesting, secrets and all, but after a while they lost their interest for me. Their growth became stagnant and once it picked up again, it just wasn’t the same as before and I couldn’t get back into the story.

Plus the fact that Ellie talks about Christmas, remembers the holidays of her past, decorates the house, and tries to get everyone into the spirit of the season, but that’s all it was, was talk. I never felt Christmas during the times it’s discussed in the story. From the blurb on the back cover, I was looking forward to a nice holiday story and that just never came to be.

However, I do like taking a gander at this book’s cover every so often. I love that chiseled face on the hero, just how I picture a cowboy to look. Needless to say, I took quite a number of peeks while reading.

Grade: C

Summary:

Reid Barclay doesn’t have time for Christmas, not with trouble brewing at the Crown Seven Ranch. He’s got prize thoroughbreds to protect, and an long-ago wrong that he wants to make right. But the beautiful cook who’s taken over the ranch kitchen is a welcome distraction, even if Ellie Jo Cade burns everything from gingerbread to roast beef. Her sweet face and womanly figure are pure temptation…

Cornhusk angels…bright berry garlands…spun-sugar snow—everything about Christmas holds fond memories for Ellie Jo. She’s doing her best to make peace with an ornery wood-burning stove and make the old ranch house truly festive. All she wants is to believe in Reid…and the only-at-Christmas magic that makes hearts glow…

Read an excerpt.

Sandy M’s review of One Real Cowboy by Janette Kenny
Historical Western Romance published by Zebra 1 Mar 07

It’s such a treat to find a book that has the true flavor, the real feel of cowboys, their lives and surroundings. Cordell Tanner, the hero of this book, walks, talks, and acts just like a man of the west should, as do all the other characters he deals with throughout the story.

Of course, the exception to that is Trixie, an English transplant who has fallen in love with her home in Kansas and resorts to a little deceit to make sure she keeps it, and a few of her relatives who figure significantly in the storyline later in the book. You’d think they’d be like fish out of water, but they actually take to the ranching life quite easily.

Trixie, Cord’s name for her since she doesn’t act or look like a Beatrix to him, is determined to make her grandfather see she can continue to take care of the homestead as she’s done even before her father’s death. She refuses to return to England and be a good little girl. She especially won’t sell out to the local men who want her land and who think a woman’s place is taking care of a husband. So, to outsmart them all, including her grandfather, she hires Cord to be her make-believe husband — she gets to keep her home and he gets a nice tidy sum to make himself scarce from the one place he vowed never to return to. Sounds easy enough.

Cord is a man’s man. He’s lived a rough life from childhood on. He’s a drifter, but he’s stayed on the right path, is an honorable man, trustworthy and good, all despite growing up with a mother who paid him no mind. He does overdo the drinkin’ once in a while, and that’s what gets him in trouble when he meets Trixie. Finally being talked into becoming her husband, Cord is also drawn into the mystery of unusual and dangerous happenings on the ranch. In the midst of it all, his feelings for Trixie grow, something he’s always avoided before, but she’s a strong, independent woman who deserves better than the likes of him, so the only thing to do is hightail it out of town when their time is up and before she finds out the truth about him. Not once was Cord ever out of character. The wording, the action, the feelings of the man were those of a cowboy through and through. And I had to laugh each time his little rustler decided to act up.

This is one of the best westerns I’ve read since I finished Lorraine Heath’s Texas Trilogy a year or so ago. There have been a few good ones along the way, but none of this caliber. None that reminded me of my grandmother’s chocolate gravy at breakfast and chicken and dumplins at dinner. None that brought home the sounds and smells this country girl remembers from her childhood. So I reckon I’m gonna love Ms. Kenny’s new book, One Real Man, and I’ll be headin’ into town directly to get me a copy.

Grade: A+

From the back cover: 

     Straight From The Heart

     Cord Tanner has a very simple plan: get paid to be Beatrix Northroupe’s husband for a month so the prim, but sexy, Englishwoman can gain rightful ownership of her family’s stud farm. Money in hand, he’s going to get as far away from Revolt, Kansas, as a fast horse can take him.

     But Cord soon finds that he admires his Trixie’s reckless courage–not to mention she’s one great kisser. Maybe he’s crazy to hope for a real future with her instead of heading for the hills, but now that someone’s staking a dangerous claim to her farm, Cord’s decided to stick around as long as the lady needs protecting. That wedding ring he put on her finger means her reputation is safe–and he’s determined to win her heart. Cord Tanner may not be the most refined man on the frontier, but he sure is the lovingest…

     Read an excerpt.