Book Tour and Book Review: She's Gone Country #5

Author: Jane Porter
Title: She's Gone Country
Publisher: 5 spot
Publish Date: Aug 23, 2010
Copy Provided By: Crazy Book Tours
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: Shey Darcy, a 39-year-old former top model for Vogue and Sports Illustrated led a charmed life in New York City with a handsome photographer husband until the day he announced he'd fallen in love with someone else. Left to pick up the pieces of her once happy world, Shey decides to move back home to Texas with her three teenage sons. Life on the family ranch, however, brings with it a whole new host of dramas starting with differences of opinion with her staunch Southern Baptist mother, her rugged but overprotective brothers, and daily battles with her three sons who are also struggling to find themselves. Add to the mix Shey's ex-crush, Dane Kelly, a national bullriding champ and she's got her hands full. It doesn't take long before Shey realizes that in order to reinvent herself, she must let go of an uncertain future and a broken past, to find happiness--and maybe love--in the present.

Review: A lot of readers will recognize Jane's name from the many Harlequin Presents novels she's written over the years. That's why I was a bit wary of reading She's Gone Country at first. It didn't take long for  me to change my way of thinking.

Jane's character's are grown up, have "real life troubles" and are for the most part, are people you'd like to call a friend. I can't say that I can relate to a former supermodel with a gay ex-husband, but she felt real, and it was easy to empathize with her and her struggles, even when you want to smack her, when she can only eat 2 fajitas!

Only two!

This book was more a story about life than it was a romance, though Jane does focus on the short teenage relationship with Dane Kelly, but it isn't quite what the story is about, and there sure aren't any real hot and heavy sex scenes here.  Though you will be excited for her finally sorting out that old relationship, what the reader really cares about here is her relationships with her 3 sons, Hank, Bo, and Cooper, all of which have issues of their own to deal with.

Shey felt more like a mom in this story than a supermodel. The only thing that I had any issue with was the financial problems that Shey and her ex had, because there really wasn't much of an explanation for them.

Other than that, Jane's She's Gone Country was a perfect example of chicklit for the slightly older chicks.

Rating:  4 flowers

Book Review: King Of The Desert, Captive Bride

Author: Jane Porter
Title: King Of The Desert, Captive Bride
Publisher: Harlequin Presents 2725
Mini-series The Desert Kings
Publish Date: May 2008
Rating: 4 stars

Jane Porter's King Of The Desert, Captive Bride, is probably one of the best Presents novels I've read. The story revolves around Sheikh Khalid Fehr and Olivia Morse. Olivia is imprisoned in Jabar for smuggling drugs into the country. Thanks to a plea from her brother, Khalid manages to get her out of the prison but not without consequences. He has to marry her.

Khalid is not your typical Presents hero. He's not super arrogant. He's not nasty. In fact, Khalid is the kind of hero, most women dream about. He comes and rescues a damsel in distress.

Olivia is the one that the reader begins to feel frustrated with as the story progresses. Khalid is buying her fabulous clothes and doing his best to make her comfortable and she's fighting him at every chance. Oh and did I mention the guy rescued her from what would likely have been a death sentence in a foreign prison?

There are definitely a few times when the reader is left longing to shake some sense into Livy. Especially when Khalid follows the old adage, if you love someone set them free, down to the letter.

Once again, its thanks to her brother's intervention that she gets her happily ever after.

This is definitely a Presents for the keeper shelf.