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Women Ahead of Their Times #1
Lady Deception
THE LADYCody Jameson—the name sent chills down the spines of every sidewinder west of the Pecos. A master of disguise, a genius of deceit, the infamous bounty hunter always had the advantage over any prey. No desperado knew Cody's real identity—or even suspected that the tracker stalking him was a fiery beauty.THE DECEPTIONThe first time Cody caught sight of Luke Majors, she was dressed as a lady preacher. But nothing could conceal the way the gunman thrilled her. Still, it wasn't Luke's body or soul that Cody was after—it was the price on his head. And she was sure to collect the reward, if only she could convince herself that a fistful of dollars was worth more than a lifetime of passion.
450 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1996
33 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Bobbi Smith
71 books514 followersAfter 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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 20, 2023
Note, June 20, 2023: I just edited this slightly, to correct a couple of typos, and to eliminate initial references to the review of another book I'd just posted. This was one of my earliest reviews, posted when I was very new to Goodreads, and didn't realize that each individual review is normally read independently of the reviewer's reviews of other books! (I also read it back at a time when I was still claiming, and thinking, that I didn't like Westerns. I've learned better since then. :-) )
This is a book I got for my wife, because I felt the pistol-packing cowgirl on the cover would appeal to her, and then read on her recommendation. It's something of a departure from my usual reading fare, since it's not only a Western, but a paperback romance as well. Set mainly in Texas in 1877, the title refers to the heroines' penchant for using disguise and deception in her work; she's a bounty hunter with a reputation for bringing in her quarry alive. The leading male character is an ex-gunfighter recently turned rancher, who's mistakenly accused of complicity in a bank robbery; she's hired to bring him in alive.
Smith's prose style could use polishing, and often lacks artistry; scenes often aren't sketched with much sensory detail, and many of the characters are not sharply drawn. And there is a certain amount of explicit, while not disgusting, illicit sex in the book, though it doesn't come across as something the author (who is a professing Roman Catholic) is trying to promote or justify --it seems merely to be presented as something that could realistically happen between two people in the situations depicted here. (There is some violence, too, though it isn't glorified, and a certain amount of bad language, of the h- and d-word sort.) However, to the extent that the book presents any moral messages, they're generally wholesome ones, and even religious ones in places --one of our heroine's guises is as a lady preacher, and while Christ is never mentioned in her preaching, it definitely presents a theistic and moral world- view, with a call to repentance and a recognition of the possibility of forgiveness and grace; and she has a positive effect on some characters' lives. (Granted, to some degree she's playing a role here --but it's not a role that's wholly foreign to her own convictions.)
The plot moves with several inventive twists and turns that enhance reader interest, and Smith even incorporates a bit of mystery, in the hidden identity of the shadowy outlaw chieftain El Diablo. (Astute readers will guess this early on --but trying to guess the solution to a mystery is part of its fun.) Cody and Luke are appealing characters whom the reader can readily like and respect, despite their human foibles.
This is a book I got for my wife, because I felt the pistol-packing cowgirl on the cover would appeal to her, and then read on her recommendation. It's something of a departure from my usual reading fare, since it's not only a Western, but a paperback romance as well. Set mainly in Texas in 1877, the title refers to the heroines' penchant for using disguise and deception in her work; she's a bounty hunter with a reputation for bringing in her quarry alive. The leading male character is an ex-gunfighter recently turned rancher, who's mistakenly accused of complicity in a bank robbery; she's hired to bring him in alive.
Smith's prose style could use polishing, and often lacks artistry; scenes often aren't sketched with much sensory detail, and many of the characters are not sharply drawn. And there is a certain amount of explicit, while not disgusting, illicit sex in the book, though it doesn't come across as something the author (who is a professing Roman Catholic) is trying to promote or justify --it seems merely to be presented as something that could realistically happen between two people in the situations depicted here. (There is some violence, too, though it isn't glorified, and a certain amount of bad language, of the h- and d-word sort.) However, to the extent that the book presents any moral messages, they're generally wholesome ones, and even religious ones in places --one of our heroine's guises is as a lady preacher, and while Christ is never mentioned in her preaching, it definitely presents a theistic and moral world- view, with a call to repentance and a recognition of the possibility of forgiveness and grace; and she has a positive effect on some characters' lives. (Granted, to some degree she's playing a role here --but it's not a role that's wholly foreign to her own convictions.)
The plot moves with several inventive twists and turns that enhance reader interest, and Smith even incorporates a bit of mystery, in the hidden identity of the shadowy outlaw chieftain El Diablo. (Astute readers will guess this early on --but trying to guess the solution to a mystery is part of its fun.) Cody and Luke are appealing characters whom the reader can readily like and respect, despite their human foibles.
October 4, 2023
Review originally posted on Overflowing Shelf
CW: Sexism; racism; murder; cultural appropriation; gun violence; injury; physical abuse; verbal abuse; infidelity; and death of a parent (off-page)
I was so excited to dive into Lady Deception as the book seemed to have so much potential! With a fantastic cover (and stepback), an intriguing premise, and a strong opener, I thought I would love this. But the writing in this book really fails it, squandering away all that potential, leaving me more frustrated in the end.
Cody Jameson is a renowned bounty hunter, yet very few people know Cody’s real identity and that she is a woman. A master of disguise, a genius of deceit, the infamous bounty hunter always had the advantage over any prey. After a bank robbery in Del Fuego, famous gunman Luke Majors gets caught in the middle as the townspeople think he’s part of the El Diablo gang behind the heist. Luke goes undercover inside the gang to help clear his name and discover who is El Diablo. However, there is still a bounty on his head, so his friend Jack, a Texas Ranger, brings in Cody to track Luke down and bring him in alive. Cody doesn’t know he’s not a ruthless criminal. While donning many disguises, Cody falls for this gunman, even if it goes against her better judgment, as Luke also works to uncover the identity of El Diablo.
The book opens with a great opening scene, but things start to fizzle quickly as we get into the main action of the plot and meet all the characters.
I love a strong female character, and Cody Jameson had the potential to be that. But unfortunately, all the characters felt so flat and stale – I couldn’t connect with any of them. Cody was the only one who felt a bit more well-rounded, but I still thought we were told she was this great bounty hunter, but not shown it. She still had to rely on Luke, a man, to get her out of many dicey situations when I wanted to see her be more of a “take no BS, I can do this on my own” type of character. Cody did feel the most emotionally complex of all the characters, but I still felt like she was pretty flat. She’s in various disguises throughout the book – some I liked more than others – making it challenging to know the real Cody.
Luke, our main male character, felt like a cardboard cut out of a man. I felt like I never really got to know him. There were so many different elements to him that should have made him compelling, but none were ever fully fleshed out or given the attention they deserved, so he felt very two-dimensional. I did like that all he wanted to do was get back to his ranch and horses, but he also felt honor-bound to find out who El Diablo was to help bring them to justice and clear his name.
Jack, the Texas Ranger, felt as bland as white toast, and I honestly didn’t understand why we were spending so much time with his POV (until something happened later in the book where I went, OH). He’s also probably the worst Texas Ranger as he kept blowing Luke’s undercover status to everyone and cannot put two and two together regarding who El Diablo is. Smith relies on many archetypes and stereotypes with her characters, so none feel like real people.
Don’t even get me started with the rest of the secondary characters. There were even some pretty major secondary characters I kept forgetting about, and I was trying to figure out why I should even care about half of them. I also cannot believe how vile some of the secondary characters are – they’re so prejudiced and narrow-minded in their beliefs, or they casually disregard women’s feelings and only see them as there to please the men.
The writing is what takes this book down. It’s incredibly choppy and simplistic, which really hindered my enjoyment of the story. Bobbi Smith did too much telling and not enough showing. Also, there was a lot of repetition in this. There were so many times when a character felt like they were talking in circles as they kept saying the same thing three or four different ways, as if to make sure the reader got the point before the story could move on. The dialogue felt stilted, unlike things a real person would say. I know this is a book, but it felt like when you see a bad actor reading their lines in a play, and you just cringe and want it to be over. That’s how I felt while reading the dialogue and some of the writing.
The pacing was also all over the place, and I had no idea how much time had passed throughout the story. Some scenes felt like “blink, and you missed it” type moments, while others dragged on too long. For example, the whole section with Cody pretending to be the preacher Sister Mary went on for too long, but the confrontation with El Diablo was over in the blink of an eye. There is also a lot of information dumping to help establish the world, the plot, and the characters, which didn’t help the story – contributing to it feeling like you were being told everything, not shown.
The writing also did not do the romance in this book any favors. There was no spark, no chemistry – NOTHING – between our leads. Was there even a romance in it? We were told they have this attraction and these deeper feelings, but we never see it. It’s also a bit weird because Cody’s in all these disguises and slowly develops feelings for Luke, but he doesn’t realize all these women he’s running into are Cody. He feels more lust than love for them, while Cody seems to feel more. That should lead to conflict and tensions, but it really doesn’t. Consent in this book is dicey, but I’ll give that a bit of a pass as the book is from 1996, and romance novels of that period are always a bit dicey when it comes to that.
Also, the sexy scenes were not sexy. I HATED that Smith also kept referring to the act of sex as “LOVING.” My god, that phrase was used like 20 times on one page to talk about banging.
There’s also a secondary romance between Jack and Elizabeth, the wife of a bank teller who was shot, that I did NOT understand why I should care about. There was literally no setup for it, no chemistry, no tension. They jumped into bed so quickly, despite the fact SHE IS MARRIED, because apparently they were so hot for each other, but I was left scratching my head as it felt so out of left field.
Now, I didn’t hate everything as there are some things I liked. First off, the plot is bonkers, which I LOVED. The story goes to some truly wild places, which had me laughing at its absurdity in the best possible way. In the hands of a more skilled writer like Lorraine Heath, this could have been a 5-star read, as the plot has SO MUCH POTENTIAL. It could have been so fun with all the wild twists and turns, but the writing failed. I also really enjoyed what Smith did with El Diablo. While the identity of El Diablo ended up being easy to guess toward the end, I liked how it played into some of the broader themes in this book.
This book was a massive disappointment and a slog to get through. I have a few other books from this series on my TBR, but I don’t know if I will read them now, as Smith’s writing was my biggest struggle with this book. It just wasn’t up to snuff and did more of a disservice to the story, and I don’t think I can take another book written in this style.
CW: Sexism; racism; murder; cultural appropriation; gun violence; injury; physical abuse; verbal abuse; infidelity; and death of a parent (off-page)
I was so excited to dive into Lady Deception as the book seemed to have so much potential! With a fantastic cover (and stepback), an intriguing premise, and a strong opener, I thought I would love this. But the writing in this book really fails it, squandering away all that potential, leaving me more frustrated in the end.
Cody Jameson is a renowned bounty hunter, yet very few people know Cody’s real identity and that she is a woman. A master of disguise, a genius of deceit, the infamous bounty hunter always had the advantage over any prey. After a bank robbery in Del Fuego, famous gunman Luke Majors gets caught in the middle as the townspeople think he’s part of the El Diablo gang behind the heist. Luke goes undercover inside the gang to help clear his name and discover who is El Diablo. However, there is still a bounty on his head, so his friend Jack, a Texas Ranger, brings in Cody to track Luke down and bring him in alive. Cody doesn’t know he’s not a ruthless criminal. While donning many disguises, Cody falls for this gunman, even if it goes against her better judgment, as Luke also works to uncover the identity of El Diablo.
The book opens with a great opening scene, but things start to fizzle quickly as we get into the main action of the plot and meet all the characters.
I love a strong female character, and Cody Jameson had the potential to be that. But unfortunately, all the characters felt so flat and stale – I couldn’t connect with any of them. Cody was the only one who felt a bit more well-rounded, but I still thought we were told she was this great bounty hunter, but not shown it. She still had to rely on Luke, a man, to get her out of many dicey situations when I wanted to see her be more of a “take no BS, I can do this on my own” type of character. Cody did feel the most emotionally complex of all the characters, but I still felt like she was pretty flat. She’s in various disguises throughout the book – some I liked more than others – making it challenging to know the real Cody.
Luke, our main male character, felt like a cardboard cut out of a man. I felt like I never really got to know him. There were so many different elements to him that should have made him compelling, but none were ever fully fleshed out or given the attention they deserved, so he felt very two-dimensional. I did like that all he wanted to do was get back to his ranch and horses, but he also felt honor-bound to find out who El Diablo was to help bring them to justice and clear his name.
Jack, the Texas Ranger, felt as bland as white toast, and I honestly didn’t understand why we were spending so much time with his POV (until something happened later in the book where I went, OH). He’s also probably the worst Texas Ranger as he kept blowing Luke’s undercover status to everyone and cannot put two and two together regarding who El Diablo is. Smith relies on many archetypes and stereotypes with her characters, so none feel like real people.
Don’t even get me started with the rest of the secondary characters. There were even some pretty major secondary characters I kept forgetting about, and I was trying to figure out why I should even care about half of them. I also cannot believe how vile some of the secondary characters are – they’re so prejudiced and narrow-minded in their beliefs, or they casually disregard women’s feelings and only see them as there to please the men.
The writing is what takes this book down. It’s incredibly choppy and simplistic, which really hindered my enjoyment of the story. Bobbi Smith did too much telling and not enough showing. Also, there was a lot of repetition in this. There were so many times when a character felt like they were talking in circles as they kept saying the same thing three or four different ways, as if to make sure the reader got the point before the story could move on. The dialogue felt stilted, unlike things a real person would say. I know this is a book, but it felt like when you see a bad actor reading their lines in a play, and you just cringe and want it to be over. That’s how I felt while reading the dialogue and some of the writing.
The pacing was also all over the place, and I had no idea how much time had passed throughout the story. Some scenes felt like “blink, and you missed it” type moments, while others dragged on too long. For example, the whole section with Cody pretending to be the preacher Sister Mary went on for too long, but the confrontation with El Diablo was over in the blink of an eye. There is also a lot of information dumping to help establish the world, the plot, and the characters, which didn’t help the story – contributing to it feeling like you were being told everything, not shown.
The writing also did not do the romance in this book any favors. There was no spark, no chemistry – NOTHING – between our leads. Was there even a romance in it? We were told they have this attraction and these deeper feelings, but we never see it. It’s also a bit weird because Cody’s in all these disguises and slowly develops feelings for Luke, but he doesn’t realize all these women he’s running into are Cody. He feels more lust than love for them, while Cody seems to feel more. That should lead to conflict and tensions, but it really doesn’t. Consent in this book is dicey, but I’ll give that a bit of a pass as the book is from 1996, and romance novels of that period are always a bit dicey when it comes to that.
Also, the sexy scenes were not sexy. I HATED that Smith also kept referring to the act of sex as “LOVING.” My god, that phrase was used like 20 times on one page to talk about banging.
There’s also a secondary romance between Jack and Elizabeth, the wife of a bank teller who was shot, that I did NOT understand why I should care about. There was literally no setup for it, no chemistry, no tension. They jumped into bed so quickly, despite the fact SHE IS MARRIED, because apparently they were so hot for each other, but I was left scratching my head as it felt so out of left field.
Now, I didn’t hate everything as there are some things I liked. First off, the plot is bonkers, which I LOVED. The story goes to some truly wild places, which had me laughing at its absurdity in the best possible way. In the hands of a more skilled writer like Lorraine Heath, this could have been a 5-star read, as the plot has SO MUCH POTENTIAL. It could have been so fun with all the wild twists and turns, but the writing failed. I also really enjoyed what Smith did with El Diablo. While the identity of El Diablo ended up being easy to guess toward the end, I liked how it played into some of the broader themes in this book.
This book was a massive disappointment and a slog to get through. I have a few other books from this series on my TBR, but I don’t know if I will read them now, as Smith’s writing was my biggest struggle with this book. It just wasn’t up to snuff and did more of a disservice to the story, and I don’t think I can take another book written in this style.
December 29, 2017
This is a great Western romance! packed with action, there's never a dull moment. Only a small bit of erotica keeps me from giving it 5 stars..the book would have been just as good without it. But I was very happy to be able to skip over it without losing any conversation, as happens in so many romance books. The author kept me in suspense, wondering what disguise Cody would use next. The ending was a wonderful surprise, filled with more than one unexpected twist to the tale. If you like western romances, you will love THIS one!
November 14, 2022
Relatively good read. One way to capture a man I guess. She's a bounty hunter, a master of disguise, which has given her a reputation. Also most think she is a male. He's a gunfighter at the wrong place at the wrong time and soon is on the run from the law with a price on his head. His friend, who is a ranger, tries to help him clear his name and hires the bounty hunter to capture him alive. Lots of action, romance and deceit.
April 10, 2018
The Lady Bounty Hunter
I absolutely loved this book. Hats off to Bobbi Smith for another awesome novel. A Bounty Hunter and the man she was turning in fall in love. I loved the intriguing way she brought in her men. Disguises. Brilliant.
I absolutely loved this book. Hats off to Bobbi Smith for another awesome novel. A Bounty Hunter and the man she was turning in fall in love. I loved the intriguing way she brought in her men. Disguises. Brilliant.
August 28, 2019
Oi
I like the story line, the characters, and the plot! Fantastic author! Each book I have read has been different ways. She has no particular mold, which gets boring after a while. Bobbi S.ugh has a great imagination. Best book I have read in a while!
I like the story line, the characters, and the plot! Fantastic author! Each book I have read has been different ways. She has no particular mold, which gets boring after a while. Bobbi S.ugh has a great imagination. Best book I have read in a while!
April 15, 2024
Oh wow so bad. Oh my gosh. This is why writers have editors. And sensitivity readers. Warning! White Female protagonist paints her skin brown at one point and goes by Anita and believes that she can naturally do an accent because she grew up in San Antonio. Yikes!
April 24, 2019
Lady
I loved this story, I recommend every one to read her books, I look forward to reading more of her books, KATTIE.
I loved this story, I recommend every one to read her books, I look forward to reading more of her books, KATTIE.
March 30, 2016
Nice, much advanture! A girl needs to find a wanted man!
I like Bobbi Smith!!!!!!!!!!
I like Bobbi Smith!!!!!!!!!!
August 16, 2022
I love this one! She has that sort of spirit & talent to transform herself into whoever she needs to be to get the job done. It just kind gets you really into it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews