Dylan

by Norah Hess

The last thing rugged cowboy Dylan wanted was to be saddled down with a wife to take care of; but when he meets long-legged beauty Rachel, the bachelor begins to see that there's more to life than the duties of the ranch.

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical, Western Romance, Westerns

292 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Always a daydreamer, and often scolded for it by the grandmother who raised her, Norah Hess always wanted to be a writer. At eighteen, she was sent to Chicago to live with an aunt after her grandmother's death. It was there that she met her husband. After raising three children, Norah decided to write her first novel, and since then has had fifteen published romances. After her husband passed away, she and her two cats moved to Palm Springs, where the desert and mountains inspire her to write her Western romances.

Reviews

[Kristina]

I don’t know what was thicker here; the melodrama, the clichés or the hair on the hero’s chest.

This book was a hot mess and utterly ridiculous. I’m not rating it because I kind of went in knowing it would be (anyone who read the blurb would feel the same) so I don’t feel like it would be sporting of me.
But wow. This was bad. The cover is great though, I think he’s riding a bucking bronco? It fits because if you read the blurb, the dude is a man’s man. 😂
I have much to say so my review will be done in fits and starts as I formulate my thoughts about this whackadoodle book.

There was so much going on in this book and still it didn’t really have a plot. It did however have five different villains, two rediscovered biological fathers, pimps with hearts of gold, orphans being rescued left and right, lots of rape, domestic abuse, pedophilia, animal abuse, wildlife attacks, many misunderstandings, lots of rescues of the heroine, many shoot outs, a knife fight and the heroine tamed and trained not one, not two, but three unrideble stallions! 😮 .

This book was extremely repetitive as well, it started each chapter with expositional inner monologues going over information that had already been established multiple times. For a book under 300 pages, readers can be trusted to remember information told to us one time. Also the way the author went about telling the story often comprised of building to an event, then skipping over the event only to have it recapped in conversation or thoughts. Why not simply write the scene in question? This roundabout writing style really disconnected me from the story, and tended to leave off any emotions and merely gave the gist of whatever happened.
This made the romance very unromantic. We have very few scenes of the main couple actually together and they maybe have two interactions on page and yet we read in their inner monologues about how they feel about each other and I was left asking myself, how?
Both characters were extremely one dimensional and had no development whatsoever. She is a sweet, blond and beautiful girl who needs saved and protected and he’s a big strong man who saves and protects. Thats it. That’s their entire character arc. Except for all the times we get to hear about the saloon girls discussing how the hero is randy and can go all night (this is repeated multiple times) and how he no longer wants to dally with whores so he must be in love (also repeated multiple times by multiple side characters in their conversation.)

Also rape and domestic abuse are prevalent in this book and used as convenient plot devices. I use plot loosely because as I’ve said, the only actual plot in this is that bad stuff keeps happening to the heroine so the hero can rescue her, followed by him misunderstanding her relationship with her newly discovered bio dad (who only her bio dad knows is her bio dad) and running away to avoid her and commitment for a few more weeks, rinse and repeat. But this author loooooves rape and domestic abuse, every man in this thing in a rapist and abuser to show:
A)How strong and precious the heroine is that she avoids it and also needs protected from it and
B)How great the hero and her bio dad are for not beating and raping women. I mean the bar for men in this book is set in hell.
Speaking of set, where and when was this set? The most I can tell is it’s near a mountain and in the olden times 😂.

So obviously some of these older romances can be ott and silly and that can be a real fun time, but this one was just too repetitive and dumb to even hit the levels of classic bodice ripper goodness.

What a waste of a cool cover.

[Jules2016 · Rating 2 out of 5]

So bad. I should have known from the cover - there would be nothing redeeming about this book. A cheesy, ridiculous, Mickey Mouse wrote this with goofy as his editor kind of bad. I want my USD$3 back.

[kattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dylan

I loved this story. I look forward to reading more of her books. I recommend everyone to read this book. Kattie.

[Amylou1977 · Rating 4 out of 5]

i bought this book at cvs because i needed a book to read and the title Dylan struck my fancy as Dylan is my sons name i like almost every book i do read and this was another good one here is its blurb:



Dylan Quade is a man's man. He has no use for any woman, least of all the bedraggled charity case his shiftless kin are trying to palm off on him. Rachel Sutter had been wedded and widowed on the same day and now his dirt-poor cousins refuse to take her in, claiming she'll make Dylan a fine wife. Not if he has anything to say about it! But one good look at Rachel's long, long legs and white-blond hair has the avowed bachelor singing a different tune. All he wants is to prove he's different from the low-down snakes she knew before, to convince her that he is a changed man, one who will give anything to have the right to take her in his arms and love her for the rest of his life.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was really sweet how this man found a big family, he took in alot of kids to have a wife

[Cassandra]

Couldn't be put down. Wonderful plot that kept you guessing and on your toes.

[Nana Afia Dwomoh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well that sucked