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Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan #1
Baby Love
Desperate and determined, Maggie Stanley grabs her small baby and runs into the snowy Idaho night. In her loneliest, blackest hour, she unexpectedly finds a warmth and comfort she has never known in the tender compassion of a handsome, down-and-out stranger. In Rafe Kendrick, Maggie recognizes a soul wounded like her own—though she knows she must never trust any man ever again.
Rafe is more than he seems—an enigmatic man of secrets who could give Maggie the moon, had he not vowed to spend his life alone. But sometimes love's flames can transform a cold world into paradise—and a man who's lost nearly everything, a woman who's forgotten how to dream, and the helpless child who needs them both can become that most wondrous a family.
Rafe is more than he seems—an enigmatic man of secrets who could give Maggie the moon, had he not vowed to spend his life alone. But sometimes love's flames can transform a cold world into paradise—and a man who's lost nearly everything, a woman who's forgotten how to dream, and the helpless child who needs them both can become that most wondrous a family.
438 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1999
335 people are currently reading
4667 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Anderson
102 books2,959 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
(1)romance author:
Adeline Catherine was born and raised in Grants Pass, Oregon, USA. She always yearned to be a writer like her mother. The morning that one of her professors asked if she could use samples of Catherine’s creative writing on an overhead projector to teach was a dream come true. In 1988, she sold her first book to Harlequin Intrigue and went on to write three more before she tried her hand at a single-title historical romance. Nine books later, she did her first single-title contemporary.
Catherine married Sidney D. Anderson, an industrial electrician and entrepreneur. They had two sons, Sidney D. Jr. and John G. In 2001 she and her husband purchased a central Oregon home located on a ridge with incredible mountain views and surrounded by forestland honeycombed with trails. It was her dream home, a wonderland in the winter and beyond beautiful in the summer. She named it Cinnamon Ridge after the huge ponderosa pines on the property, which sport bark the color of cinnamon.
Sadly, Catherine lost her husband to a long-term illness in 2014. She has kept Cinnamon Ridge as her primary residence but divides her time between there and her son John's farm, where she has the support of her loved ones and can enjoy his horses, cows, and raise her own chickens.
Catherine loves animals and birds, both wild and domestic. She presently has two Australian shepherds, six cats, and a very old canary. She is very family oriented as well. Her older son has lived in Japan, Australia, and now resides in New Zealand. Catherine and her stateside family will celebrate Christmas on the north island with Sidney, his wife Mary, and their two sons, Liam and Jonas.
(1)romance author:
Adeline Catherine was born and raised in Grants Pass, Oregon, USA. She always yearned to be a writer like her mother. The morning that one of her professors asked if she could use samples of Catherine’s creative writing on an overhead projector to teach was a dream come true. In 1988, she sold her first book to Harlequin Intrigue and went on to write three more before she tried her hand at a single-title historical romance. Nine books later, she did her first single-title contemporary.
Catherine married Sidney D. Anderson, an industrial electrician and entrepreneur. They had two sons, Sidney D. Jr. and John G. In 2001 she and her husband purchased a central Oregon home located on a ridge with incredible mountain views and surrounded by forestland honeycombed with trails. It was her dream home, a wonderland in the winter and beyond beautiful in the summer. She named it Cinnamon Ridge after the huge ponderosa pines on the property, which sport bark the color of cinnamon.
Sadly, Catherine lost her husband to a long-term illness in 2014. She has kept Cinnamon Ridge as her primary residence but divides her time between there and her son John's farm, where she has the support of her loved ones and can enjoy his horses, cows, and raise her own chickens.
Catherine loves animals and birds, both wild and domestic. She presently has two Australian shepherds, six cats, and a very old canary. She is very family oriented as well. Her older son has lived in Japan, Australia, and now resides in New Zealand. Catherine and her stateside family will celebrate Christmas on the north island with Sidney, his wife Mary, and their two sons, Liam and Jonas.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 443 reviews
June 26, 2025
I really enjoyed the premise of this one and how the author came about wanting to write the story.
The idea came to me from a country-western song by Hal Ketchum. If you have ever listened to “Swing Low,” you know it is a hauntingly beautiful song about a hardened drifter who encounters an impoverished young woman and infant in a train station on a cold winter night.
However, the overall story felt extremely outdated and ott unrealistic.
There are some very dark subjects covered lightly in this book, check TWs.
The idea came to me from a country-western song by Hal Ketchum. If you have ever listened to “Swing Low,” you know it is a hauntingly beautiful song about a hardened drifter who encounters an impoverished young woman and infant in a train station on a cold winter night.
However, the overall story felt extremely outdated and ott unrealistic.
There are some very dark subjects covered lightly in this book, check TWs.
May 6, 2013
Catherine Anderson is one of my favourite authors. OK, her Heros might be a bit alpha and OTT but I love that. Eventhough some of these books have been written years ago, I am only discovering her now.... highly recommend her.
October 27, 2008
Reviewed for www.thcreviews.com
"4.5 stars" Baby Love is a wonderful book that is reminiscent of a grown-up fairy tale, a Cinderella story. As the heroine, it has a young woman who has known the meaning of hard work since she was only fourteen, when her father passed away leaving her with the responsibility of caring for an ailing mother and baby sister. Then an incredibly evil stepfather entered her world bringing nothing but heartache and abuse. When she finally is able to make her escape, she meets up with a scruffy, drunken bum. She briefly entertains a fantasy that he will be her frog that will turn into a handsome Prince Charming. Imagine her surprise, when she discovers that he is really a gorgeous, multi-millionaire rancher who wants nothing more than to give her the happy ending she so richly deserves. Actually this description is a charming underlying element in the narrative, but far too simplistic to express the wealth of complexities and underlying emotions in this beautiful story. It is, at it's heart, a story of two souls, each deeply wounded in their own way, who find hope, love, comfort and healing in each others arms. Catherine Anderson is masterful at creating tight plotting, even with somewhat cliched elements, to bring about a heartwarming story.
Rafe Kendrick is a rather dreamy but tortured hero, just the way I like them. I think nearly every woman wants to believe that men like Rafe actually exist (and of course they do, but seem to be a rare breed). I found it to be an incredibly endearing twist to have Rafe fall hopelessly in love with Maggie at first sight, while it took her a little longer. He has a history of being a romantic, as he fell in love at first sight with his first wife as well. It was also a refreshing change to have the hero be the sort of guy who doesn't sleep around with lots of women before finally finding one who captures his heart. Before Maggie, Rafe had only been with one other woman, his first wife, and he loved her very intensely. He was a man of deep emotions who was a kind, gentle, compassionate caregiver to Maggie in every way, both physical and emotional. I love the way that Rafe held himself back from making love to Maggie, giving her time to heal emotionally and learn to trust him. He helped her to do that by indulging in romantic courting rituals even though they were already married. One of my favorite scenes is when Rafe reassures Maggie that her body is still beautiful in spite of the flaws and imperfections that have been brought about by childbirth. Another favorite scene is when he wraps Maggie in his arms while she is nursing the baby, which I thought was a wonderful family bonding moments. I also love it when the hero finds his pregnant or nursing wife beautiful, because so many women are self-conscious about their bodies during that time. I think the thing that endeared me to Rafe the most though was his acceptance, without reservation, of Maggie's past and most especially her son, not hesitating to give Jaimie his name and be a father to him in every way that counts.
Maggie was a wonderful heroine who was not unlike many women who find themselves in abusive situations. The fact that she endured and survived such horrifying abuse and eventually found a way to escape showed a great strength of character in my opinion. She was also never whiny or clingy, always stubbornly insisting on doing for herself as much as possible even to her detriment. She also insisted on paying her own way, nearly driving Rafe to distraction when all he wanted to do was help her, never expecting anything in return. I think that Maggie's devotion to her infant son, Jaimie, who was conceived and born out of incredibly difficult circumstances was nothing short of amazing. Also her love and sense of responsibility for her young sister, Heidi, and her mentally childlike mother was very heartfelt. Yet her conflicted feelings about her own lost childhood because of that responsibility were very realistic and relateable. I love the way that Maggie grew and changed throughout the story, in the end finding strength she never knew she possessed and using her wits to help save herself and her baby from a very dangerous situation.
In Baby Love, Ms. Anderson has woven a wonderful cast of characters from the hero and heroine right down to the supporting characters who are believable and well-written. The Kendricks especially create an amazingly warm and loving family that anyone would be proud to call their own. As heartwarming as the story is though, it is still very heart wrenching as well. As a warning to sensitive readers, I would say that this story is primarily driven by the emotional conflicts of the death of family members, including young children, and the aftermath of horrific abuse. While neither subject, in my opinion, is given a graphic treatment, there is enough descriptive detail to make the reader's heart break for both characters. Sometimes though, heartbreak can make for a wonderfully inspirational story, and Baby Love definitely fits the bill, while also being extremely well-written. One example of this great writing was that early on, Rafe's care and concern began to border on control, leaving Maggie feeling palpably fearful and me a tad uncomfortable as well. True to form though, Ms. Anderson explains his behavior believably, and also gives him a wake-up call and increased self-insight, which was another thing that I loved about his character. There were a couple of minor things that I might have changed though. The description of Rafe's courting of Maggie immediately following their marriage was too brief to suit me, and I thought would have been even more romantic if some of the things they did together had been explored in more detail. There was also one scene in which Rafe lost his temper and said some rather ugly things which were difficult to read, but that I understand were probably necessary to propel the conflict to another level. I have seen other reviewer complaints about having to suspend disbelief in order to read this story, which to some degree is true, but for any reader who is an imaginative and hopeless romantic like I am, this book should be just the thing.
Baby Love is the first book in Ms. Anderson's Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan series. In it readers are given a strong introduction to Rafe's brother, Ryan, who is just as sweet as Rafe and becomes the hero of the second book, Phantom Waltz. The remaining books in the series up to this point are: Sweet Nothings, Blue Skies, Bright Eyes, My Sunshine, Sun Kissed, and Morning Light, with Star Bright due out in January. Ms. Anderson also has a historical series tied to members of the Coulter family. I have to admit that historical romances are my real reading passion and I don't tend to read a lot of contemporaries, but if they are well-written, I am open minded to trying almost anything. Ms. Anderson is one of those rare authors who is so good at her craft that I can't seem to get enough of her stories no matter which genre they fall into. Baby Love is a story that was simply so good that at times I could barely put it down. I would highly recommend it to all romance readers no matter what their usual genre preference is. It has certainly earned a place on my keeper shelf, and I am eagerly off to read Ryan's story now.
"4.5 stars" Baby Love is a wonderful book that is reminiscent of a grown-up fairy tale, a Cinderella story. As the heroine, it has a young woman who has known the meaning of hard work since she was only fourteen, when her father passed away leaving her with the responsibility of caring for an ailing mother and baby sister. Then an incredibly evil stepfather entered her world bringing nothing but heartache and abuse. When she finally is able to make her escape, she meets up with a scruffy, drunken bum. She briefly entertains a fantasy that he will be her frog that will turn into a handsome Prince Charming. Imagine her surprise, when she discovers that he is really a gorgeous, multi-millionaire rancher who wants nothing more than to give her the happy ending she so richly deserves. Actually this description is a charming underlying element in the narrative, but far too simplistic to express the wealth of complexities and underlying emotions in this beautiful story. It is, at it's heart, a story of two souls, each deeply wounded in their own way, who find hope, love, comfort and healing in each others arms. Catherine Anderson is masterful at creating tight plotting, even with somewhat cliched elements, to bring about a heartwarming story.
Rafe Kendrick is a rather dreamy but tortured hero, just the way I like them. I think nearly every woman wants to believe that men like Rafe actually exist (and of course they do, but seem to be a rare breed). I found it to be an incredibly endearing twist to have Rafe fall hopelessly in love with Maggie at first sight, while it took her a little longer. He has a history of being a romantic, as he fell in love at first sight with his first wife as well. It was also a refreshing change to have the hero be the sort of guy who doesn't sleep around with lots of women before finally finding one who captures his heart. Before Maggie, Rafe had only been with one other woman, his first wife, and he loved her very intensely. He was a man of deep emotions who was a kind, gentle, compassionate caregiver to Maggie in every way, both physical and emotional. I love the way that Rafe held himself back from making love to Maggie, giving her time to heal emotionally and learn to trust him. He helped her to do that by indulging in romantic courting rituals even though they were already married. One of my favorite scenes is when Rafe reassures Maggie that her body is still beautiful in spite of the flaws and imperfections that have been brought about by childbirth. Another favorite scene is when he wraps Maggie in his arms while she is nursing the baby, which I thought was a wonderful family bonding moments. I also love it when the hero finds his pregnant or nursing wife beautiful, because so many women are self-conscious about their bodies during that time. I think the thing that endeared me to Rafe the most though was his acceptance, without reservation, of Maggie's past and most especially her son, not hesitating to give Jaimie his name and be a father to him in every way that counts.
Maggie was a wonderful heroine who was not unlike many women who find themselves in abusive situations. The fact that she endured and survived such horrifying abuse and eventually found a way to escape showed a great strength of character in my opinion. She was also never whiny or clingy, always stubbornly insisting on doing for herself as much as possible even to her detriment. She also insisted on paying her own way, nearly driving Rafe to distraction when all he wanted to do was help her, never expecting anything in return. I think that Maggie's devotion to her infant son, Jaimie, who was conceived and born out of incredibly difficult circumstances was nothing short of amazing. Also her love and sense of responsibility for her young sister, Heidi, and her mentally childlike mother was very heartfelt. Yet her conflicted feelings about her own lost childhood because of that responsibility were very realistic and relateable. I love the way that Maggie grew and changed throughout the story, in the end finding strength she never knew she possessed and using her wits to help save herself and her baby from a very dangerous situation.
In Baby Love, Ms. Anderson has woven a wonderful cast of characters from the hero and heroine right down to the supporting characters who are believable and well-written. The Kendricks especially create an amazingly warm and loving family that anyone would be proud to call their own. As heartwarming as the story is though, it is still very heart wrenching as well. As a warning to sensitive readers, I would say that this story is primarily driven by the emotional conflicts of the death of family members, including young children, and the aftermath of horrific abuse. While neither subject, in my opinion, is given a graphic treatment, there is enough descriptive detail to make the reader's heart break for both characters. Sometimes though, heartbreak can make for a wonderfully inspirational story, and Baby Love definitely fits the bill, while also being extremely well-written. One example of this great writing was that early on, Rafe's care and concern began to border on control, leaving Maggie feeling palpably fearful and me a tad uncomfortable as well. True to form though, Ms. Anderson explains his behavior believably, and also gives him a wake-up call and increased self-insight, which was another thing that I loved about his character. There were a couple of minor things that I might have changed though. The description of Rafe's courting of Maggie immediately following their marriage was too brief to suit me, and I thought would have been even more romantic if some of the things they did together had been explored in more detail. There was also one scene in which Rafe lost his temper and said some rather ugly things which were difficult to read, but that I understand were probably necessary to propel the conflict to another level. I have seen other reviewer complaints about having to suspend disbelief in order to read this story, which to some degree is true, but for any reader who is an imaginative and hopeless romantic like I am, this book should be just the thing.
Baby Love is the first book in Ms. Anderson's Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan series. In it readers are given a strong introduction to Rafe's brother, Ryan, who is just as sweet as Rafe and becomes the hero of the second book, Phantom Waltz. The remaining books in the series up to this point are: Sweet Nothings, Blue Skies, Bright Eyes, My Sunshine, Sun Kissed, and Morning Light, with Star Bright due out in January. Ms. Anderson also has a historical series tied to members of the Coulter family. I have to admit that historical romances are my real reading passion and I don't tend to read a lot of contemporaries, but if they are well-written, I am open minded to trying almost anything. Ms. Anderson is one of those rare authors who is so good at her craft that I can't seem to get enough of her stories no matter which genre they fall into. Baby Love is a story that was simply so good that at times I could barely put it down. I would highly recommend it to all romance readers no matter what their usual genre preference is. It has certainly earned a place on my keeper shelf, and I am eagerly off to read Ryan's story now.
March 30, 2011
I truly wanted to like this book. I have loved everything I have read from Catherine Anderson so my expectations were maybe too high. It had all the elements I usually like, meaning hot tortured hero, but there were too many things in this story that I just could not overlook. ok, I'm done ranting!
October 9, 2010
I just don't even know what to say about this one. Other than to me it read like a Harlequin that went on about 200 pages too long. Or that cowboy types who call the heroine "honey" from their first meeting bug me. Or that a millionaire who drops everything to ride the rails for 2 years (WTF!!!) but reconciles with his family with ONE phone call doesn't ring true to me. And that the hero's favourite song is "The Way We Were"????? (Good Grief, WHEN WAS THIS BOOK WRITTEN? It actually reads to me like something from the early 80s). Or that the whole thing seemed contrived. And the heroine bugged me - noble is one thing, but the other side of that slope is stubbornness and martyrdom. And I felt like she fell off that side of the slope. And the villian was cartoonish. And her mother, completely unnecessary - even as a plot device.
And I apologize to my friends here on GR who loved this book -- sorry ladies! It's not the book's fault - I just didn't like it.
And I apologize to my friends here on GR who loved this book -- sorry ladies! It's not the book's fault - I just didn't like it.
May 22, 2021
3.5 STARS
I ended up enjoying this one. But, I had quite a few issues with it along the way. I'm not going to elaborate on them, because it would provide too many spoilers to the story. But suffice it to say that the story has some really strong points, and some somewhat questionable points. Was it plausible? Not in a million years, but that's ok, it was still a good story. I have enjoyed both of the books I've read by this author, and look forward to reading many more of her books.
A man found magic so rarely. When it came along, you either had the courage to throw caution to the wind and grab hold of it—or you forever lost the chance.
I ended up enjoying this one. But, I had quite a few issues with it along the way. I'm not going to elaborate on them, because it would provide too many spoilers to the story. But suffice it to say that the story has some really strong points, and some somewhat questionable points. Was it plausible? Not in a million years, but that's ok, it was still a good story. I have enjoyed both of the books I've read by this author, and look forward to reading many more of her books.
December 15, 2025
I don't know about this one
I liked the idea of this more than the execution.
It's like everything that was presented was
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🕮⋆˚࿔✎𓂃 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦����𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
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I liked the idea of this more than the execution.
It's like everything that was presented was
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🕮⋆˚࿔✎𓂃 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦����𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
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January 9, 2015
5 angel face stars
This was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't have asked for anything more from this book. The characters, the writing, the relationships were just perfection.
This was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't have asked for anything more from this book. The characters, the writing, the relationships were just perfection.
August 19, 2008
Five words: Biggest. Waste. Of. Time. Ever.
This book was boring and predictable Do yourself a favor and skip it!
This book was boring and predictable Do yourself a favor and skip it!
September 9, 2009
Maggie Stanley is on the run with her tiny one-month old baby. She's trying to get away from an abusive step-father who, right before she left home, beat her so severely that she's covered from neck to toe in bruises and cuts. With little money and no help, Maggie hops a train headed away from her tiny Idaho town.
Rafe Kendrick is running away from the memories that haunt him. His wife and two children were killed in a car accident right in front of his eyes, and he desperately needs to escape the pain. He left home with the clothes on his back and has spent two years riding the rails and drinking himself into oblivion. It works for him as long as he doesn't close his eyes...that's when the memories come crashing back and the pain threatens to overwhelm him.
After rescuing Maggie from a group of men intent on raping her on the train, Rafe finds himself with a woman and baby who desperately need help, and he's the only person they can turn to. It's not the best idea to pin all your hopes on an alcoholic bum...except that he isn't.
Baby Love is one of those books with such richly drawn characters that it's captivating from page one. Maggie was an abused heroine who suffered for years until she was forced to make a stand to protect her tiny baby. Rafe had lost everything that he loved, and his gut-wrenching pain over that loss was difficult to read. Maggie and Jaimie reminded him of his family, but Rafe was able to cope with those feelings and care for them although his fear did make him a bit overbearing at times.
I love to see a hero who isn't afraid to declare his feelings early for the heroine and will do anything to make things right for her. Rafe was a take-charge kind of guy and exactly what Maggie needed after the abuse that she suffered.
This is an excellent first book in the Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan series and I can't wait to read the others.
Rafe Kendrick is running away from the memories that haunt him. His wife and two children were killed in a car accident right in front of his eyes, and he desperately needs to escape the pain. He left home with the clothes on his back and has spent two years riding the rails and drinking himself into oblivion. It works for him as long as he doesn't close his eyes...that's when the memories come crashing back and the pain threatens to overwhelm him.
After rescuing Maggie from a group of men intent on raping her on the train, Rafe finds himself with a woman and baby who desperately need help, and he's the only person they can turn to. It's not the best idea to pin all your hopes on an alcoholic bum...except that he isn't.
Baby Love is one of those books with such richly drawn characters that it's captivating from page one. Maggie was an abused heroine who suffered for years until she was forced to make a stand to protect her tiny baby. Rafe had lost everything that he loved, and his gut-wrenching pain over that loss was difficult to read. Maggie and Jaimie reminded him of his family, but Rafe was able to cope with those feelings and care for them although his fear did make him a bit overbearing at times.
I love to see a hero who isn't afraid to declare his feelings early for the heroine and will do anything to make things right for her. Rafe was a take-charge kind of guy and exactly what Maggie needed after the abuse that she suffered.
This is an excellent first book in the Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan series and I can't wait to read the others.
June 15, 2017
This was so beautiful. Everything about this story touched my heart so deeply. I find stories about loss of a spouse and moving on are hard usually. This one absolutely shattered the ceiling and took all my feelings and reservations and buried them. Rafe deserved every moment of happiness and peace that he found with Maggie and Jaimie. This beautiful broken man had way too much life, love and passion to live alone. The thing I adored was the traditional love story.. The sweetness, the family and all of the bonds that were developed. I absolutely can't describe the feeling of satisfaction and hope I have found in discovering this seasoned author. Sometimes I think going back to the roots of Romance definitely cleanses the palate and awakens the reason I read all over again. Sweet, beautiful, passionate love stories with vibrant heroes and sensitive yet strong heroines.
Just perfect.
Stalking the rest now.
100% Safe
Past rape and abuse described regarding heroine.
Just perfect.
Stalking the rest now.
100% Safe
Past rape and abuse described regarding heroine.
May 18, 2017
Wasn't what I was hoping it would be. Boo. :( There were one too many forced contrived things that made the story fall flat and got in the way of my enjoyment of it. There was nothing natural or realistic about this story. Call me cynical, but the idea of a grieving widower falling for a young woman in
2 days
of meeting her just doesn't really work for me. Given the circumstances surrounding both characters it was incredibly hard to grasp the idea of these two or I should say Rafe falling so quickly for Maggie. They both come with some serious heavy baggage, Maggie with her awful abusive history with her stepfather and Rafe losing his wife and kids in an accident. The author makes a point in the beginning to address how Rafe has been living like a bum, drinking into oblivion not caring for life or anything for 2 years straight then he has a dream where his wife tells him it's time to move on. Boom! He opens his eyes and there is Maggie. Literally. <__< Meeeh. He's still clearly in mourning yet here I'm supposed to believe he falls head over heels in love with a complete stranger in 2 days?? Try again. And the idea of Rafe easily accepting & claiming Maggie's little boy Jamie as his child was just too much. Not even half way in he starts referring to Jamie as his son which gave me some serious whiplash. In theory it's sweet and I would have believed it more if Anderson slowly built up the relationship between Rafe and Jamie, he's a grieving father for crying out loud. Any man in that situation would have had serious reservations and fears and even anger but oh no, Rafe steps right up as the new father like a piece of cake. They become an instant perfect family with Rafe going all out buying them everything and wanting to move them into his place right away. Say whuuut?? Through 90% of the story, the relationship is extremely one-sided. If the story opened up with Rafe picking up his life slowly after slumming and meeting Maggie by chance it would have made more sense, but no. We find our hero in the beginning of the story neck deep in liquor living like a homeless drunk in a boxcar wanting to be left alone and not caring for anything and wanting to die. So to go from that to magically flipping his entire life around for Maggie--a virtual stranger--a few days later, just didn't jive with me. Grief doesn't work that way. It was like stepping into a Disney story where everything is magically fixed, healed and absolved with flowery words and overly grand gestures. Eeeeh. And you sure as hell can't magically replace the babies you lost with someone else's child which is exactly what the author did here but tried very hard to disguise it as something miraculous & 'meant to be'. Ummm yeah..no.
And speaking of contrived things, Rafe, the self-proclaimed alcoholic being able to give up heavy drinking in a matter of 2 days and drinking wine with no issues was ballsy yet very unrealistic. I mean seriously? Come on. LOL! And I'm not even going to get into the fact that he slips into his old life so quickly and easily after being away for so long. Going from boxcar drunk to Kendrick millionaire who can call in a Cessna to come pick him up with no hesitation is a nice fantasy but I'd like a little more realism. The transition was jolting and just comical. Everything just seemed too perfect and too good to be true on the Kendrick ranch, I almost felt like it was robotic. The perfect doting husband, sprawling ranch, perfect overly affectionate grandparents who accept their 'new grandchild' with open arms and everything in between. I sound like a complete cynic. I'm honestly not, I just like a little more room for realism or at least actions that make more sense. I felt this had a lot of potential of being a powerful sob-worthy story but the overall execution and rushed pacing fell very short. All of it seemed very gimmicky and dishonest. And Maggie's history is tragic and heartbreaking but I didn't really connect with her like I wanted to. Anderson did a good job of showing her fears as far as sex and relationship with men. But I did think her shy personality did veer into prudish sensibilities sometimes with her out of control blushes and gasps over having sex in broad daylight--"what will people think?!" Seriously Anderson? What decade are we in?? Stop it. *cringing*. Also both characters had the habit of falling into martyr territory with all the shouldering of blame for stuff that was out of their control. I love any man who's as considerate as Rafe but seriously having him on the verge of ripping his hair out for not doing every. single. thing. right became a little bit much and in some cases overboard obsessive. Calm down dude.
Pretty much how I kept picturing Rafe in my head:
I don't know overall I was expecting a lot of angst and a dark edge to this given Rafe's tragic loss but half the time he came across as a caricature. With his repetitive mushy 'honey' and 'sweetheart' nicknames and lopsided grins...there was nothing natural or real about him. And the poor guy's eyes must be exhausted from all the nonstop winking he does in here. That drove me FREAKING INSANE! Every other line there is a wink that follows right on cue, it became very distracting because it was so persistent. I just kept picturing this after awhile:
He started to come across robotic and not real. I felt Anderson made him a cliche gimmicky character. I read Ryan's story before this and I felt more connected to him and his story than I did with Rafe's which is a shame. This had a lot of great potential but it just didn't work for me and left me feeling disappointed, underwhelmed and tempted to skim to get to the end. :(
And speaking of contrived things, Rafe, the self-proclaimed alcoholic being able to give up heavy drinking in a matter of 2 days and drinking wine with no issues was ballsy yet very unrealistic. I mean seriously? Come on. LOL! And I'm not even going to get into the fact that he slips into his old life so quickly and easily after being away for so long. Going from boxcar drunk to Kendrick millionaire who can call in a Cessna to come pick him up with no hesitation is a nice fantasy but I'd like a little more realism. The transition was jolting and just comical. Everything just seemed too perfect and too good to be true on the Kendrick ranch, I almost felt like it was robotic. The perfect doting husband, sprawling ranch, perfect overly affectionate grandparents who accept their 'new grandchild' with open arms and everything in between. I sound like a complete cynic. I'm honestly not, I just like a little more room for realism or at least actions that make more sense. I felt this had a lot of potential of being a powerful sob-worthy story but the overall execution and rushed pacing fell very short. All of it seemed very gimmicky and dishonest. And Maggie's history is tragic and heartbreaking but I didn't really connect with her like I wanted to. Anderson did a good job of showing her fears as far as sex and relationship with men. But I did think her shy personality did veer into prudish sensibilities sometimes with her out of control blushes and gasps over having sex in broad daylight--"what will people think?!" Seriously Anderson? What decade are we in?? Stop it. *cringing*. Also both characters had the habit of falling into martyr territory with all the shouldering of blame for stuff that was out of their control. I love any man who's as considerate as Rafe but seriously having him on the verge of ripping his hair out for not doing every. single. thing. right became a little bit much and in some cases overboard obsessive. Calm down dude.
Pretty much how I kept picturing Rafe in my head:
I don't know overall I was expecting a lot of angst and a dark edge to this given Rafe's tragic loss but half the time he came across as a caricature. With his repetitive mushy 'honey' and 'sweetheart' nicknames and lopsided grins...there was nothing natural or real about him. And the poor guy's eyes must be exhausted from all the nonstop winking he does in here. That drove me FREAKING INSANE! Every other line there is a wink that follows right on cue, it became very distracting because it was so persistent. I just kept picturing this after awhile:
He started to come across robotic and not real. I felt Anderson made him a cliche gimmicky character. I read Ryan's story before this and I felt more connected to him and his story than I did with Rafe's which is a shame. This had a lot of great potential but it just didn't work for me and left me feeling disappointed, underwhelmed and tempted to skim to get to the end. :(
November 19, 2022
Como sempre que estou com a cabeça a mil e agoniada com falta de tempo, fui em busca de uma leitura levezinha, delicodoce e que me fizesse chorar baba e ranho, que é aquilo que me alivia quando estou em situações como a que descrevi.
Porém, apesar de esta obra ser levezinha, previsível e delicodoce como eu queria que ela fosse, não mexeu comigo, isto é, não me fez sentir aquilo que precisava de sentir para desabafar em choro...
NOTA - 06/10
Porém, apesar de esta obra ser levezinha, previsível e delicodoce como eu queria que ela fosse, não mexeu comigo, isto é, não me fez sentir aquilo que precisava de sentir para desabafar em choro...
NOTA - 06/10
January 11, 2015
Overall rating: 5 "Maggie girl" stars!
Triggers:
Cheating:
Love triangle:
Sex with om/ow:
HEA:
My review:
This was a very cute story! Light and sweet with very little drama. This is the story about second chances and new beginnings. Rafe thought his life was over when his wife and two beautiful children were taken from him in a tragic accident, but then he met Maggie and Jamie. With one look, he knew this was his second chance. Maggie, on the run with her 3 month old son, never thought she would fall in love with the drunk bum she met on a train car. But looks can be deceiving. He was her new beginning. I loved all of the characters and of course, the hero was so very patient and romantic. Maggie did drive me a little crazy at times with her always wanting to keep a tally of the money Rafe spent to know how much to "pay him back" if he should ever ask her to leave. It drove Rafe crazy too, but she eventually did overcome that and it was beautiful :)
Triggers:
Cheating:
Love triangle:
Sex with om/ow:
HEA:
My review:
This was a very cute story! Light and sweet with very little drama. This is the story about second chances and new beginnings. Rafe thought his life was over when his wife and two beautiful children were taken from him in a tragic accident, but then he met Maggie and Jamie. With one look, he knew this was his second chance. Maggie, on the run with her 3 month old son, never thought she would fall in love with the drunk bum she met on a train car. But looks can be deceiving. He was her new beginning. I loved all of the characters and of course, the hero was so very patient and romantic. Maggie did drive me a little crazy at times with her always wanting to keep a tally of the money Rafe spent to know how much to "pay him back" if he should ever ask her to leave. It drove Rafe crazy too, but she eventually did overcome that and it was beautiful :)
May 13, 2008
This is my first Anderson book, and I was pleased. I did like both the Hero & Heroine, and you really got to feel you knew and understood them. The man lost his wife and two young children in a car crash two years before, and the woman escaped from an abusive situation with her young infant. They meet on a box car filled with dangerous drifters. He saves her from the dangerous men, and we go from there... This was an intense story. Some of the situations seemed to last 100 pages. However, I did like it and would recommend it to romance fans.
November 6, 2015
This was fairly good.
Two things that bothered me. Never once was that baby in a car seat. I can go with the bad guy not caring but the hero? Also at the end, they are riding and he has the baby in front of him on a flightly stallion. If you're being that careful you'd ride a more gentle dependable horse and save the stallion for riding alone. And horses don't smell fear although body tenseness will sometimes make them nervous.
Okay the story itself - There were places where it lost my interest and I wondered when it would end. Second half was better than the first half. It was an interesting departure to have them marry half way through and still have problems after they admitted their love. I did think she got over her issues with a physical relationship too easily. Like the first time he touched her she came twice? Hmm. I'd think there might be a flashback or too at the very least to deal with. She had been raped for 3 years. I did like that he lost his temper and fought with her. It made him seem more like a real person than many romance heros. I wasn't real fond of the heroine. No particular reason other than I usually like my heroines a little more gutsy than her.
Two things that bothered me. Never once was that baby in a car seat. I can go with the bad guy not caring but the hero? Also at the end, they are riding and he has the baby in front of him on a flightly stallion. If you're being that careful you'd ride a more gentle dependable horse and save the stallion for riding alone. And horses don't smell fear although body tenseness will sometimes make them nervous.
Okay the story itself - There were places where it lost my interest and I wondered when it would end. Second half was better than the first half. It was an interesting departure to have them marry half way through and still have problems after they admitted their love. I did think she got over her issues with a physical relationship too easily. Like the first time he touched her she came twice? Hmm. I'd think there might be a flashback or too at the very least to deal with. She had been raped for 3 years. I did like that he lost his temper and fought with her. It made him seem more like a real person than many romance heros. I wasn't real fond of the heroine. No particular reason other than I usually like my heroines a little more gutsy than her.
September 4, 2024
RTC, beautiful stepback.
May 16, 2020
Predictable but overall an enjoyable read today - I'm not sure if I would have said the same a few days ago.
Potential Triggers:
Potential Triggers:
December 11, 2017
Pek beğenemedim. Aslında her şey yerli yerindeydi, normalde bayılmam gereken bir kurgu ama bir şey eksikti. Yine içine giremediğim bir kitap oldu kısacası.
November 1, 2010
I know many of you loved this book, but it wasn't that good for me. It was okay, I liked it, but I never got crazy about it. Although I definitely liked how the author writes and I will be reading book 2 right away because I really hope for the things I didn't like about this book will not be in book 2.
What I REALLY didn't like:
1) Most of all I just can't stand romances where the hero and or the heroine fall in love right away. The kind I see you one day and fall absolutely and irrevocably in love with you the next second. I'm sorry, I may not be a romantic, but I can't understand how someone can call this love. IMHO this is just lust and I don't care for a romance based in this. For me, romance implies to get to know the other person and for for what's inside. Now seriously, if you fall just for what you see there is something wrong. At least, that's how I feel. I don't care to read about this shallow romances. I like much more the once where they get to know each other and realize they are just perfect for each other.
2) I also didn't like that a hero with a huge trauma was presented in the story and then a heroine with a problem even worst. And then they magically crossed each others way and then everything begins. I guess you have to know a bit more of the story to understand why this bothered me. First, the hero was a huge multimillionaire who lost his family and decided to stay drunk and travel as a vagabond for 2 years, obviously until he met the heroine. The heroine was a 24 year-old who was extremely abused and raped by her step-father.
I just could not understand how a multimillionaire, with a family who loves him and has as much money, could get lost for 2 years. It felt so unreal and forced. So just from the beginning, as the link between them was not a good one for me, I could not sympathize with the main characters.
But that's about it. It's just that those 2 things I did not like were very important in the big picture.
But then there were a lot of things I enjoyed. I loved to have kids in the story, I have a huge like for kids in my books. Then there was the hero's family, which I adored and am dying to read more. They were so funny, sweet and loving that you just could not help but to love them. And the scenery was amazing, huge landscapes full of snow with a millionaires ranch in it, well several ranches as a fact.
I just know I have to read the next right away because if it wasn't for those 2 things I would have LOVED the book. But I just can't make as if they were not there, because those things are important for me. Luckily, both are easy to not do, so I have huge hopes for next book.
What I REALLY didn't like:
1) Most of all I just can't stand romances where the hero and or the heroine fall in love right away. The kind I see you one day and fall absolutely and irrevocably in love with you the next second. I'm sorry, I may not be a romantic, but I can't understand how someone can call this love. IMHO this is just lust and I don't care for a romance based in this. For me, romance implies to get to know the other person and for for what's inside. Now seriously, if you fall just for what you see there is something wrong. At least, that's how I feel. I don't care to read about this shallow romances. I like much more the once where they get to know each other and realize they are just perfect for each other.
2) I also didn't like that a hero with a huge trauma was presented in the story and then a heroine with a problem even worst. And then they magically crossed each others way and then everything begins. I guess you have to know a bit more of the story to understand why this bothered me. First, the hero was a huge multimillionaire who lost his family and decided to stay drunk and travel as a vagabond for 2 years, obviously until he met the heroine. The heroine was a 24 year-old who was extremely abused and raped by her step-father.
I just could not understand how a multimillionaire, with a family who loves him and has as much money, could get lost for 2 years. It felt so unreal and forced. So just from the beginning, as the link between them was not a good one for me, I could not sympathize with the main characters.
But that's about it. It's just that those 2 things I did not like were very important in the big picture.
But then there were a lot of things I enjoyed. I loved to have kids in the story, I have a huge like for kids in my books. Then there was the hero's family, which I adored and am dying to read more. They were so funny, sweet and loving that you just could not help but to love them. And the scenery was amazing, huge landscapes full of snow with a millionaires ranch in it, well several ranches as a fact.
I just know I have to read the next right away because if it wasn't for those 2 things I would have LOVED the book. But I just can't make as if they were not there, because those things are important for me. Luckily, both are easy to not do, so I have huge hopes for next book.
September 19, 2009
(Sept. 19, 2009)After just re-reading this book I have to say that I loved it more that even the first time. It is very touching! I cried through most of the first few chapters. You just hope to have someone like Rafe in your life.
(Jan. 1, 2009)I avoided reading this book simply because the title put me off. Boy was I wrong! I Love Cathrine Andersen and the way she writes. This book touched my heart in a way that her others haven't. Rafe is a man broken by the lose of his wife and two children in a terrible accident. Riding the rails for two years, not facing real life, in a drunken stupor, he meets a girl that has just jumped on the train with a newborn baby and is in peril of being raped. Of course he saves her but finds himself drawn to the girl and her baby. Maggie has hurts of her own and has trouble trusting this grimey cowboy from the boxcar. The path that they follow to love and happieness is sad and sweet. You find yourself wishing there were more men out in the world like Rafe.
(Jan. 1, 2009)I avoided reading this book simply because the title put me off. Boy was I wrong! I Love Cathrine Andersen and the way she writes. This book touched my heart in a way that her others haven't. Rafe is a man broken by the lose of his wife and two children in a terrible accident. Riding the rails for two years, not facing real life, in a drunken stupor, he meets a girl that has just jumped on the train with a newborn baby and is in peril of being raped. Of course he saves her but finds himself drawn to the girl and her baby. Maggie has hurts of her own and has trouble trusting this grimey cowboy from the boxcar. The path that they follow to love and happieness is sad and sweet. You find yourself wishing there were more men out in the world like Rafe.
March 28, 2009
Another great story from Catherine Anderson. Rafe has lost everything, his wife, his children...and has not come to terms with his grief, so he has left everything he has ever known to ride the rails. Maggie comes from an abusive home and grabs her baby and leaves in the middle of the night to save herself and her son. Alone in a boxcar she meets Rafe who saves her from other tramps hell bent on doing damage to her and her son. Just a sweet story of trust and love.
May 18, 2022
DNF
DNF
There was a time I used to devour anything by Catherine Anderson, some of her stuff I liked more than others, but overall I never thought there would be a day I will give one of her books one star (ok, I also immensely disliked, for similar reasons to this one, her 'Phantom Waltz'). The book starts interestingly and for about 50 pages it goes rather well, but then the heroine falls terribly ill, the hero's millionaire status is revealed and is all down hill and way down hill from there.
While in some Catherine Anderson books (I don't know about her more recent output) you'd find rather interesting heroes who make for an exciting read (even when they are beta, like the hero in Annie's Song - a far superior book to this dross), in others the heroes are so poorly delineated, so sappy, so cardboard, so sickeningly maudlin that they are impossible to read. All they elicit is feelings of exasperation at their fakeness.
Everything in this book is smothered in excessive 'feelz', which is supposed to move the reader but all it does is to put her off for life. Instead of worrying about and caring for the heroine, you just want her to disappear, you just don't want to be in her head, or in her reasoning, or in her feelings anymore. She is annoying and then some. She is a stick figurine decorated with abuse and trauma. Anything connected to her inner life is tortuously trite and exasperating. Instead of feeling for her, for her broken youth, her trauma, her suffering, her vulnerability, you come to find her irritating and wish her to go away. The way she behaves does not chime with what her writer wants her to be, someone determined to survive, let alone one who professes to want to help her little sister and care for her baby (btw, nothing about the baby being the product of rape. Complete silence. The baby is treated as the most desirable outcome in this book).
I hate hate books that so thoughtlessly f*ck around with abuse and trauma. Instead of revealing something about the horror of rape -especially repeated abuse of a young girl at the hands of her step-father that result in pregnancy- they totally trivialise it, and, worse, are shameless enough to turn it into an affirmation festival for the phoniest ideas about 'sacred' motherhood! Disgusting and offensive to victims of abuse and rape). As a result, the heroine, both in her private moments and in her interactions with the hero, completely erases and consigns to oblivion the image of her broken body lying in a hospital bed, and all the feelings such images could elicit, and, instead, generates nothing but jaw dropping disbelief in the rush to affirm her as a mother (best thing that could ever happen to a victim of rape, apparently, is to have the baby of her rapist).
As for the hero, after a strong start, he abruptly ceases to be a character (on the way to being interesting) and becomes a mere advertising billboard for the heroine's wares, i.e., her formulaic beauty, virtues, greatness, and so blah blah on and so blah blah forth . He turns into a colourless stage prop whose sole purpose is to worship at the altar of the heroine. He is a loud speaker for the heroine's glorious worthiness. He is there to provide for and fully satisfy her needs (and she is soooo 'heroic' that she never expresses any of her needs herself, no, he has to guess and express them for her). And he is so insistent, persistent, dogged and tenacious in this pursuit that one fears this woman will die of too much fulfilment! The hero not only provides for the heroine's needs but also has to declare, at every opportunity, that HE MAKES AND WILL MAKE NO DEMANDS ON HER. HE HAS NO NEEDS OF HIS OWN. After all, what needs could a man who has been in the firm grip of self-destructive depression and gut-wrenching grief could possibly have? And as if that was not enough to make you run to the gastroenterologist's from all that sugar and honey and molasses and trickle, he also declares his love every third paragraph, every time he enters a room or exits a stable.
There are other problems with this ill-executed book. For example, the hero's return to his family and home after a two-year disappearance, during which they were devastated and thought him dead, goes smoother than his return trip from the local super market. Or the way the hero's totally unbelievable recovery happens. Magic in Disney cartoons is more believable than that. Immediately upon the heroine's appearance on the scene he is 'cured'(in a disgustingly inane scene, he throws away his dead wife's gift -a ring he cherished- and, worse, his dead children quickly become a bundle of warm and fuzzy memories!!!), because, as we know, nothing cures depression and grief more than being sucked into another's trauma, and the existence of a substitute baby is enough to cure you of the grief for the children you lost!!! Also, the family of the hero not only immediately and cheerfully cope with his return but they also open their millionaires' arms to the heroine, her baby and her little sister! Anyone else coming aboard? All this unnecessarily overburdened-and-monstrously trivialising serious issues plot proves is that Anderson has completely lost the plot. She cannot even accomplish the simple and necessary task of convincingly bringing hero and heroine together. The moving from Idaho to Oregon would have been better handled by the writers of 'I Dream of Jeannie'. The sad thing is that this could have been a very good Anderson romance, had she developed the story along the lines it cried out to be developed, two traumatised and broken people drifting from town to town with a baby to look after (a baby about which they both, for different reasons, feel ambivalent), and the way they come to trust and love each other and find a place to stand within the immensity of their grief and trauma. Alas, all we got was this joke of a book.
On top of everything else, this book is plagued by bad, amateur writing (shocking for a veteran like Anderson). There are long, terribly boring and repetitious scenes where the hero woos the heroine and which I could not read without feeling queasy, so I skipped and skipped like a frisky kangaroo. I, finally, after being crushed by the impossible demands made on my suspension of disbelief, had to give up and throw the book away. The straw that broke the camel's back was the heroine's natural accountancy talents! She who made a living as a waitress and had neither a degree on nor experience in book keeping, nevertheless suggests to the millionaire rancher brothers some trick or other that saves them thousands of dollars and, naturally, make them admire her even more (so that we don't just see her as this thing the hero picks up and carries around the estate but as a super talented contributor to the increase of their enormous wealth). After all accountancy is based on some natural talent, as we all know, and this woman has it in spades! But if this is not inane enough for you, how about being asked to swallow hard the fact that two multi-millionaire brothers with vast experience in running a small empire-ranch the size of half the state of Oregon, with its many operations and an army of staff, do not ALREADY have a whole firm of certified accountants at their disposal! They must stuff their receipts and invoices in a shoe box like my granny used to do! Looking at the gushing reviews and five star ratings, I can safely assume that this sort of unbelievable nonsense is not a deal breaker for many readers. I thought otherwise and so I closed the book and practiced my throw as hard as I could, as I no longer cared to read to the end, to the obligatory showdown with the villain (fearing that the bad writing would make me laugh rather than feel sorry for the fate the heroine suffered at his hands).
It took me a few years to pick up another Anderson book after the awfulness that was 'The Phantom Waltz', and this one marks the end of the line for me and Cathy.
DNF
There was a time I used to devour anything by Catherine Anderson, some of her stuff I liked more than others, but overall I never thought there would be a day I will give one of her books one star (ok, I also immensely disliked, for similar reasons to this one, her 'Phantom Waltz'). The book starts interestingly and for about 50 pages it goes rather well, but then the heroine falls terribly ill, the hero's millionaire status is revealed and is all down hill and way down hill from there.
While in some Catherine Anderson books (I don't know about her more recent output) you'd find rather interesting heroes who make for an exciting read (even when they are beta, like the hero in Annie's Song - a far superior book to this dross), in others the heroes are so poorly delineated, so sappy, so cardboard, so sickeningly maudlin that they are impossible to read. All they elicit is feelings of exasperation at their fakeness.
Everything in this book is smothered in excessive 'feelz', which is supposed to move the reader but all it does is to put her off for life. Instead of worrying about and caring for the heroine, you just want her to disappear, you just don't want to be in her head, or in her reasoning, or in her feelings anymore. She is annoying and then some. She is a stick figurine decorated with abuse and trauma. Anything connected to her inner life is tortuously trite and exasperating. Instead of feeling for her, for her broken youth, her trauma, her suffering, her vulnerability, you come to find her irritating and wish her to go away. The way she behaves does not chime with what her writer wants her to be, someone determined to survive, let alone one who professes to want to help her little sister and care for her baby (btw, nothing about the baby being the product of rape. Complete silence. The baby is treated as the most desirable outcome in this book).
I hate hate books that so thoughtlessly f*ck around with abuse and trauma. Instead of revealing something about the horror of rape -especially repeated abuse of a young girl at the hands of her step-father that result in pregnancy- they totally trivialise it, and, worse, are shameless enough to turn it into an affirmation festival for the phoniest ideas about 'sacred' motherhood! Disgusting and offensive to victims of abuse and rape). As a result, the heroine, both in her private moments and in her interactions with the hero, completely erases and consigns to oblivion the image of her broken body lying in a hospital bed, and all the feelings such images could elicit, and, instead, generates nothing but jaw dropping disbelief in the rush to affirm her as a mother (best thing that could ever happen to a victim of rape, apparently, is to have the baby of her rapist).
As for the hero, after a strong start, he abruptly ceases to be a character (on the way to being interesting) and becomes a mere advertising billboard for the heroine's wares, i.e., her formulaic beauty, virtues, greatness, and so blah blah on and so blah blah forth . He turns into a colourless stage prop whose sole purpose is to worship at the altar of the heroine. He is a loud speaker for the heroine's glorious worthiness. He is there to provide for and fully satisfy her needs (and she is soooo 'heroic' that she never expresses any of her needs herself, no, he has to guess and express them for her). And he is so insistent, persistent, dogged and tenacious in this pursuit that one fears this woman will die of too much fulfilment! The hero not only provides for the heroine's needs but also has to declare, at every opportunity, that HE MAKES AND WILL MAKE NO DEMANDS ON HER. HE HAS NO NEEDS OF HIS OWN. After all, what needs could a man who has been in the firm grip of self-destructive depression and gut-wrenching grief could possibly have? And as if that was not enough to make you run to the gastroenterologist's from all that sugar and honey and molasses and trickle, he also declares his love every third paragraph, every time he enters a room or exits a stable.
There are other problems with this ill-executed book. For example, the hero's return to his family and home after a two-year disappearance, during which they were devastated and thought him dead, goes smoother than his return trip from the local super market. Or the way the hero's totally unbelievable recovery happens. Magic in Disney cartoons is more believable than that. Immediately upon the heroine's appearance on the scene he is 'cured'(in a disgustingly inane scene, he throws away his dead wife's gift -a ring he cherished- and, worse, his dead children quickly become a bundle of warm and fuzzy memories!!!), because, as we know, nothing cures depression and grief more than being sucked into another's trauma, and the existence of a substitute baby is enough to cure you of the grief for the children you lost!!! Also, the family of the hero not only immediately and cheerfully cope with his return but they also open their millionaires' arms to the heroine, her baby and her little sister! Anyone else coming aboard? All this unnecessarily overburdened-and-monstrously trivialising serious issues plot proves is that Anderson has completely lost the plot. She cannot even accomplish the simple and necessary task of convincingly bringing hero and heroine together. The moving from Idaho to Oregon would have been better handled by the writers of 'I Dream of Jeannie'. The sad thing is that this could have been a very good Anderson romance, had she developed the story along the lines it cried out to be developed, two traumatised and broken people drifting from town to town with a baby to look after (a baby about which they both, for different reasons, feel ambivalent), and the way they come to trust and love each other and find a place to stand within the immensity of their grief and trauma. Alas, all we got was this joke of a book.
On top of everything else, this book is plagued by bad, amateur writing (shocking for a veteran like Anderson). There are long, terribly boring and repetitious scenes where the hero woos the heroine and which I could not read without feeling queasy, so I skipped and skipped like a frisky kangaroo. I, finally, after being crushed by the impossible demands made on my suspension of disbelief, had to give up and throw the book away. The straw that broke the camel's back was the heroine's natural accountancy talents! She who made a living as a waitress and had neither a degree on nor experience in book keeping, nevertheless suggests to the millionaire rancher brothers some trick or other that saves them thousands of dollars and, naturally, make them admire her even more (so that we don't just see her as this thing the hero picks up and carries around the estate but as a super talented contributor to the increase of their enormous wealth). After all accountancy is based on some natural talent, as we all know, and this woman has it in spades! But if this is not inane enough for you, how about being asked to swallow hard the fact that two multi-millionaire brothers with vast experience in running a small empire-ranch the size of half the state of Oregon, with its many operations and an army of staff, do not ALREADY have a whole firm of certified accountants at their disposal! They must stuff their receipts and invoices in a shoe box like my granny used to do! Looking at the gushing reviews and five star ratings, I can safely assume that this sort of unbelievable nonsense is not a deal breaker for many readers. I thought otherwise and so I closed the book and practiced my throw as hard as I could, as I no longer cared to read to the end, to the obligatory showdown with the villain (fearing that the bad writing would make me laugh rather than feel sorry for the fate the heroine suffered at his hands).
It took me a few years to pick up another Anderson book after the awfulness that was 'The Phantom Waltz', and this one marks the end of the line for me and Cathy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
abandon
February 2, 2020Le début était très bien et original, mais j'ai abandonné au milieu quand le héros SDF se transforme en milliardaire transi d'amour...
April 21, 2010
This may have been the most compelling opening premise I've ever read. I cracked the book at like 2am last night (there's something wrong with me, I know this) planning to just read the first 2 or 3 pages to see if it was something I wanted to read next. Next thing you know, it was 3am. Face. Palm.
Maggie Stanley is running scared. Literally. With a diaper bag and an infant she's running towards a rural Idaho train yard to hop on a boxcar, desperately trying to escape the man who viciously beat her.
Rafe Kendrick is a filthy bum passed out drunk in the corner of the boxcar she hops into. The recurring dream of his dead wife and children is suddenly interrupted by a baby's wailing. His resolve to butt out and not make this his problem shatters when the other tramps in the car start to menace her and the baby falls on the floor.
Both are tortured souls. Maggie is beaten, bruised and terrified of men. Rafe is haunted by the car wreck that killed his wife and two young children two years ago. Despite her fear and his determination to not get involved with another woman, they end up leaning on each other. Rafe hocks his wedding ring to put her up in a motel and buy her some baby formula.
The emotions in this first third of the book are gripping. Rafe's grief bleeds through the pages. He couldn't stand the thought of going on without his family, so he walked out of the ranching operation he ran with his brother and rode the rails, finding oblivion in a whiskey bottle. He sees a second chance to do right and be needed in Maggie and her infant son Jaimie. At the same time, Maggie fights the urge to lean on Rafe. She's been terribly abused - physically, emotionally, sexually - and though she's weak from her injuries, she struggles with the need to trust him to help.
Where it all started to go sort of droopy on me was when Rafe turned out to be a Surprise Millionaire Hero just past the halfway point. Why set up all this angst and drama and character building just to dash it away with dollar signs? The guy's been riding the rails for two years, hasn't contacted his family at all, then makes one quick phone call to his brother and BAMF he's flying the Cessna out to get him and Maggie and bring them to the family homestead for a love-in. It was a complete 180 in terms of emotion and tone. It went from a gritty tale of two poor souls hitting rock bottom together to a rather run of the mill rich man brings his poor bride to meet his cheerfully close family and spend all their problems away.
Toss in a few plot holes (**possible spoiler though I think it's fairly evident early on** If her stepdad was raping and abusing her, that's a slam dunk to get her 10 year old sister removed from that home. You don't need to wait for proof that he's abusing the younger girl. So much needless drama there. **spoiler**) and uninspiring prose that does not justify the tendency for telling rather than showing, and it finished on a disappointing note for me. The constant praise for Maggie for letting her stepdad abuse her to keep him away from her sister and trying to keep it from her mother to spare her the distress also rankled my inner feminist. I don't find futile self-sacrifice heroic in the least.
I wavered between a 3 and a 4, so I'll call it a 3.5.
Maggie Stanley is running scared. Literally. With a diaper bag and an infant she's running towards a rural Idaho train yard to hop on a boxcar, desperately trying to escape the man who viciously beat her.
Rafe Kendrick is a filthy bum passed out drunk in the corner of the boxcar she hops into. The recurring dream of his dead wife and children is suddenly interrupted by a baby's wailing. His resolve to butt out and not make this his problem shatters when the other tramps in the car start to menace her and the baby falls on the floor.
Both are tortured souls. Maggie is beaten, bruised and terrified of men. Rafe is haunted by the car wreck that killed his wife and two young children two years ago. Despite her fear and his determination to not get involved with another woman, they end up leaning on each other. Rafe hocks his wedding ring to put her up in a motel and buy her some baby formula.
The emotions in this first third of the book are gripping. Rafe's grief bleeds through the pages. He couldn't stand the thought of going on without his family, so he walked out of the ranching operation he ran with his brother and rode the rails, finding oblivion in a whiskey bottle. He sees a second chance to do right and be needed in Maggie and her infant son Jaimie. At the same time, Maggie fights the urge to lean on Rafe. She's been terribly abused - physically, emotionally, sexually - and though she's weak from her injuries, she struggles with the need to trust him to help.
Where it all started to go sort of droopy on me was when Rafe turned out to be a Surprise Millionaire Hero just past the halfway point. Why set up all this angst and drama and character building just to dash it away with dollar signs? The guy's been riding the rails for two years, hasn't contacted his family at all, then makes one quick phone call to his brother and BAMF he's flying the Cessna out to get him and Maggie and bring them to the family homestead for a love-in. It was a complete 180 in terms of emotion and tone. It went from a gritty tale of two poor souls hitting rock bottom together to a rather run of the mill rich man brings his poor bride to meet his cheerfully close family and spend all their problems away.
Toss in a few plot holes (**possible spoiler though I think it's fairly evident early on** If her stepdad was raping and abusing her, that's a slam dunk to get her 10 year old sister removed from that home. You don't need to wait for proof that he's abusing the younger girl. So much needless drama there. **spoiler**) and uninspiring prose that does not justify the tendency for telling rather than showing, and it finished on a disappointing note for me. The constant praise for Maggie for letting her stepdad abuse her to keep him away from her sister and trying to keep it from her mother to spare her the distress also rankled my inner feminist. I don't find futile self-sacrifice heroic in the least.
I wavered between a 3 and a 4, so I'll call it a 3.5.
November 5, 2015
Romantic Suspense Tedious
I think I'm going to call it quits on Catherine Anderson. I liked Seventh Heaven, but then had two in a row that I gave up on. I did manage to finish this one, but only through sheer will-power. All her books follow a set script, with the heroines so victimized that they are completely dependent on their hero.
I don't know why, because they certainly went through a lot, but I never came to care about Rafe and Maggie. Although, now that I think about it, that's not quite true. I did care at first, but the book's repetitiveness dragged out for so long that I got over feeling anything for them. Especially after Rafe's completely out of character temper tantrum at the baby store and Maggie's resultant stupidity.
I'm also not a fan of the story, it makes everything tidy up too easily.
This is a book for adults only due to the context, . There are a couple of bad words and one intimate scene in detail.
I think I'm going to call it quits on Catherine Anderson. I liked Seventh Heaven, but then had two in a row that I gave up on. I did manage to finish this one, but only through sheer will-power. All her books follow a set script, with the heroines so victimized that they are completely dependent on their hero.
I don't know why, because they certainly went through a lot, but I never came to care about Rafe and Maggie. Although, now that I think about it, that's not quite true. I did care at first, but the book's repetitiveness dragged out for so long that I got over feeling anything for them. Especially after Rafe's completely out of character temper tantrum at the baby store and Maggie's resultant stupidity.
I'm also not a fan of the story, it makes everything tidy up too easily.
This is a book for adults only due to the context, . There are a couple of bad words and one intimate scene in detail.
April 18, 2017
50% done, will not pick this up again. Hated everyone on this book
July 5, 2017
Title: Baby Love
Series: (Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #1)
Author: Catherine Anderson
Genres: Adult Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4.5-Stars
Cliffhanger:
HEA:
Blog: HERE
SERIES OF STANDALONES:
♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #1) Baby Love♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #2)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #3)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #4)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #5)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #6)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #7)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #8)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #9)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #10)♥
(Kendrick/Coulter/Harrigan, #11)
full ratings to come
Hero: 5-Stars
Heroine: 5-Stars
Romance: 5-Stars
Sex: 4.5-Stars
Plot: 5-Stars
Dialogue: 5-Stars
Writing: 5-Stars
September 5, 2011
A tradução deste livro foi algo que me decepcionou e irritou profundamente! E, a meu ver, é extremamente mau quando na opinião que damos sobre um livro começamos precisamente pela tradução! O que principiou por me aborrecer foi o excessivo formalismo com que os protagonistas se tratavam, sempre você para aqui e você para acolá mesmo quando já eram íntimos, mais no final já misturavam o tu com o você! Por outro lado, este excessivo formalismo foi esquecido quando foram utilizados termos brejeiros sem necessidade, temos uma língua muito rica, e que acaba por nem combinar com as personagens e a próprio enredo. Nota-se também que foi feita uma tradução sem reflexão, há a utilização de termos impensáveis e completamente errados, daqueles que uma pessoa pára e pensa "não pode ser nada disto".
Na minha opinião esta tradução está péssima.
Quanto ao enredo, passei tanto tempo incrédula com a tradução que acho que perdi metade da sua beleza... Estou muito triste e até revoltada, sinto que deito dinheiro à rua ao comprar alguns livros em português... Já deixei de seguir sagas por esse motivo! Não tarda nada deixo de ler ou tenho mesmo que me habituar a ler em inglês!
As editoras deviam ser responsabilizadas porque, não me canso de dizer, isto é o mesmo que comprar uma camisola com um buraco, quando o detectamos vamos trocar porque o produto tem defeito! O que se faz com um livro com defeito? Arruma-se na estante, assumimos o prejuízo porque se formos trocar vamos trazer o mesmo defeito e muitas vezes já em edições posteriores!
Na minha opinião esta tradução está péssima.
Quanto ao enredo, passei tanto tempo incrédula com a tradução que acho que perdi metade da sua beleza... Estou muito triste e até revoltada, sinto que deito dinheiro à rua ao comprar alguns livros em português... Já deixei de seguir sagas por esse motivo! Não tarda nada deixo de ler ou tenho mesmo que me habituar a ler em inglês!
As editoras deviam ser responsabilizadas porque, não me canso de dizer, isto é o mesmo que comprar uma camisola com um buraco, quando o detectamos vamos trocar porque o produto tem defeito! O que se faz com um livro com defeito? Arruma-se na estante, assumimos o prejuízo porque se formos trocar vamos trazer o mesmo defeito e muitas vezes já em edições posteriores!
July 28, 2020
This book was boring. Rafe is grieving after losing his wife and children. Maggie ran to keep her kid from her stepdad, who also turns out to be the father of Maggie's child and a rapist. This book was supposed to be emotional but the author failed to do that.
90% of the book nothing actually happened. The dialogues were ridiculous. It's weird when Rafe started to call Maggie 'honey' from their first meeting. I mean who does that?
I didn't understand Rafe's attraction to her. He was so good to her from the beginning but Maggie annoyed me..most of the book both protagonists only argued. I hated it when Maggie left the car in snowy weather and have a melodramatic scene.
I was so annoyed but kept reading to see what happens. Towards the end, there's some action but that's all. It's a complete disappointment.
90% of the book nothing actually happened. The dialogues were ridiculous. It's weird when Rafe started to call Maggie 'honey' from their first meeting. I mean who does that?
I didn't understand Rafe's attraction to her. He was so good to her from the beginning but Maggie annoyed me..most of the book both protagonists only argued. I hated it when Maggie left the car in snowy weather and have a melodramatic scene.
I was so annoyed but kept reading to see what happens. Towards the end, there's some action but that's all. It's a complete disappointment.
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