Casey Turner could rope and ride like any man, and she scandalized folks by wearing boys’ clothes, but when she strode down the streets of Hard Luck, Texas, nobody took her for anything but a beautiful woman. Working alongside her pa to keep the bank from foreclosing on the Bar T, she had no time for the frivolous things of life, no time for romance. But all that was about to change…
Michael Donovan had had a burr under his saddle about Casey for years. Ever since she caught him skinny-dipping in the river and stole his clothes, making him the laughingstock of the whole Circle D. The last thing he wanted was to be forced into marrying the little hoyden, but it looked like he had no choice if he wanted to safeguard the future of the Donovan ranch. Their families had been bitter enemies for years, but now his parents were urging Michael to court Casey, to treat her like a lady. He’d do his darndest, but he could never let on that underneath her pretty new dresses Casey was as wild as ever, and in his arms she was positively...BRAZEN.
After working as a department manager for Famous-Barr, and briefly as a clerk at a bookstore, Bobbi Smith gave up on career security and began writing. She sold her first book to Zebra in 1982. Since then, Bobbi has written over 40 books and several short stories. To date, there are more than five million of her novels in print. She has been awarded the prestigious Romantic Times Storyteller of the Year Award and two Career Achievement Awards. Her books have appeared on numerous bestseller lists. When she's not working on her novels, she is frequently a guest speaker for writer's groups. Bobbi is mother of two sons and resides in St. Charles, Missouri with her husband and three dogs.
The story was a very good Western, but there were so many type errors that this was a difficult story to read. "Marry" was spelled "many" in a handful of locations. The characters were misnamed. It definitely took away from the story, and I'm not even a huge stickler for that kind of thing.
LOL. Predictable story line, unrealistic characters, terrible dialogue, and horrible editing. Still, you don't read this type of romance and expect a masterpiece, right? MMP Romances are easy reading, fantasy driven books. This is what you get with "Brazen."
I enjoy all Ms. Smiths books. This book had SO MANY typos! Ridiculous really. Story was ok, but I had a difficult time with parts of it, but over all , it was good.
So first, here's why I read this book: my fabulous coworker and I realized that neither one of us has really read a romance novel. And after the Evil Librarian Supervillian's list of most ridiculous romance novels ever (http://evillibrariansupervillain.word...), how could we not read at least one book from this genre? We chose the most ridiculous books that we could find at the library and traded. I ended up with Brazen, which has probably the best/worst cover of the four books we picked up. Here's the amazing news--this book isn't terrible. I read through it quickly and did not vomit all over myself, which was what I was expecting. Here is the disappointing news--there really isn't that much sex in a romance novel (we know this after Erin, the fabulous coworker, read two books and I read this one. I need to catch up and read another.). In my book, the obvious and predictable characters in my novel only gave me four sex scenes--one was a rape act (um, yikes), one was pretty forced (um, still not too hot, though the busty, red-haired saloon owner made me laugh in just how stereotypical she was. I mean, as soon as I knew there was a saloon, I knew she would be around somewhere.), and two other sex scenes read like this:
"They came together in rapture's promise then. One in heart. One in mind. One in body. They loved."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OMG. This was the sex scene between our secondary characters, Nick (main male character's cousin) and Anne (main female character's best friend). They made love in Anne's parents' store after Michael and Casey's wedding, and the whole time I was screaming in my head, "Noooo, Anne! He's going to hit it and quit it!" But this is not the real world, so actually, right after "they loved", Nick and Anne found a justice of the peace. Meanwhile, for Michael and Casey,
"They came together. Loving. Sharing. Worshiping. Adoring. Giving each other the most perfect gift--the gift of their love." Blahblahblah. "They loved."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. What?! Can I write books like this? Where the story is predictable, the characters are ridiculous, and the sex scenes are so not hot? Hahahahaha. So terrible.
My only REAL problem with romance novels is that they seem to feature a lot of virgin women (or busty, red-haired harlots that get raped and beaten. Um. That's really not okay). Like, seriously? Erin and I both started out with "historical romance" novels, so that might be part of the problem. I will have to read my other romance novel (featuring a time traveling Viking!) and see what happens there.
I like Bobbi smith, but I am a little disappointed in this book. It was very....predictable. And there really wasn't any chemistry between any of the characters. Usually I feel like I HAVE to read her books as fast as possible but this one was just 'eh'. I would recommend Bobbi smith as an author but this book definitely isn't her best. It is a nice happy romance but nothing super enticing.
It was an ok read. This book had the drama, the hero and heroine love story, the interesting supporting characters and a little bit of romance. I can say this book is a throwback to some of my first romance novels I read that my mother use to buy when I was a kid growing up. I guess I'm use to the new age romance books, with more erotica and detailed sexual scenes. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me.
I enjoyed this book and storyline. The thing that bothered me the most was the lack of editing. This book would have read much more smoothly had the editing been adapted.