That wasn't painful at all (said with much sarcasm).

Basic plot - h and her uncle run a horse training facility. 3 horses have died. They're suspicious so the uncle sends her to his old buddy - the H - who he knows works for a security firm, for aid.

The H - it's like Ted Striker is a romance hero. Oh, he doesn't *talk* about it, but he's constantly in his head about *3* whole incidents where things went south. And you know, two of those were directly related to someone else charging off without listening to the voice of reason. But. You know. It's all his fault. Because. You know. He's jinxed. And he's just sure either the h or his old buddy is next. Well, yeah. If you keep moping around instead of say, duct taping one or both to chairs and let you - the former Ranger (I assume - army, special forces) - do your job.

The h - high energy - she's always jumping to conclusions and charging off blindly. Her dad is Mr Suave, and a user. So she's sworn off anyone who she finds attractive and who fits the description (read, I'd never go out with anyone who'd have me). So she doesn't figure she's his type and any passes he makes at her are because...why exactly? She's also so willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that it never even occurs to her that one of her clients might be trying the same thing with her that her dad did to her mom. Oh, she notices his interest but she's not interested so disregards him completely. Since he's behind the mysterious equine deaths...this somewhat blind view of things means it never occurs to her to be the least bit suspicious about some guy who knows her dad having two horses in her barn, one who dies a mysterious death (and was insured for a million bucks).

Which brings something to mind - if you had in your barn a bunch of expensive horses, one of which was insured for a million bucks, why would you not have security of SOME sort? Cameras, a guard, SOMEthing.

On the trail of a vicious criminal, agent Chance Mackenzie finds the perfect bait for his trap: the target's daughter, Sunny Miller. Chance makes himself the only man she can trust and then arranges for her elusive father to find out about them. But Chance doesn't know that Sunny has her own reasons for hiding from her father. His deception puts them in danger of losing everything—including their hearts.

GABRIEL'S ANGEL

She almost crashes into him on a snowy road, he offers her temporary shelter in his cabin, discovers she’s pregnant, and on the run. To protect her, he decides to marry her, delivers the baby, and slays her dragons.


Sheesh. Far from Nora Roberts’s best work. Slow and as annoying as the heroine, with a bland hero, an unbelievable (in this day, but maybe it worked when it was written) premise and even more unbelievable romance and insta-love.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

She left town when she was sixteen, traveled the world with her father, became a famous pianist...Now, a few months after her father's death, she's back in her hometown, living with the mother who supposedly hadn't wanted anything to do with her in the past years, and falling all over again for the man who abandoned her.


It was a nice story, with lovely secondary cast, lovely secondary romance, a lovely small-town setting, and a very lovely leading man.
Pity the heroine ruined everything. Rather self-centered, with a penchant of sticking her head in the sand, blaming pretty much everybody but the person who was responsible for her leaving, for her mother "abandonment", her crush supposedly dumping her.

I didn't understand her, I didn't get her reasoning, and I couldn't have cared less about what happened to her. Pity she was the heroine.

Blake was tracking the Rose Killer in order to forget the woman he couldn't save. Now there was a new lead: a survivor. Convincing Samantha “Sam” Dawson to help was only half the battle. Resisting the allure of the fiery beauty was downright impossible.

Sam wanted nothing to do with men. With the city. With the fame of her former life as a model. Six months after the heinous attack, she still bore the killer's trademark scar. But if she was tough as she thought, she'd have to face her fears to catch a killer—and dare to love again.

I finished it, do I get a cookie?

One of the hazards of reading these types of books is that authors have this urge to throw as much crap in them as you'd expect in a full size book, but they have a limited number of pages to work with.

I think this one had enough crap for 3 full sized books.

So lessee... secret baby
psycho ex (or friend with benefits who was angling for a more permanent position)
dead mama
little sister who was nuts (and I couldn't tell if it necessarily was that she was nuts or that she'd figured out how to manipulate people. A lot of times, she came across as a spoiled brat).
And of course the H who was resentful that he hadn't been told about the baby he'd vehemently said he didn't want in the first place.
Oh, and the mysterious "leaves small town and runs off to NYC".

So the teenage h, pregnant with the H's baby, is stuck in a car with him as he rants about his best friend getting trapped in marriage by a pregnant girlfriend. She decides against telling him, though up until then, she'd been planning to, and leaves town. To NYC. To become...a waitress. There was some mental thinking later of her neighbors and I was quite frankly puzzled. How could you afford any sort of *safe* sort of apartment within an easy walk of the park, with nice neighbors, on a waitress' salary? Oh, and preschool.

So the h's mom has died, she's come home to handle the estate (which is another bemusement. Small farm in the midwest, apparently working. No mention of how or what either, yet somehow a family can support themselves.), the H finds out he's a daddy, dumps the benefits (who resents this, naturally), and within a day or so, the incidents start. First there's someone shooting in the h's direction - grazes her (this, btw, was with a shotgun. Really?! I know you can get cartridges like that, but they're generally used for target practice), then there's the board over the well (which had me smirking inappropriately about Timmy falling down a well and Lassie - err - Lindy (sis) going to fetch help), there's the intruder attempting to strangle the child (who somehow managed to kick and scream), there's the poisoned casserole (that was fed to a dog as they didn't want it).

At this point, the sis elected to stay with a surrogate momma, and the h and kid moved in with the H.

It was nearly a week of unbearable sexual tension (on their part) and unbearable pages (on mine) before the genius H (local sheriff btw) suddenly thought about the possibility of it being the chick he had an arrangement with. Of course Dudley DoRight manages to save the day. Too bad it never occurred to him to ponder things a bit earlier as by the time he figured it out, the h had left the child with the nut burger ex. By this time he decided he wanted his kid and the h in his life and he was ready to become a real boy errr man.

Regardless of how obsessive one is over a guy, his being sheriff should at least make one a little cautious. It apparently never dawned on the woman at all that if she'd succeeded in killing anyone, there'd be an investigation, and the possibility of someone figuring it out in such a small town (really, I think we met like, 10 people) is pretty high. So either she's batshit crazy (and really good at faking it) or she's stupid. Maybe seeing as how she's mid-late 20s and working in a small town diner...

And the sis. Supposed to be manic depressive and it's possible. It seems also possible in light of their childhood that she stumbled across a way of manipulating people. Apparently when they were children, the h played the protective older sibling. Strange since I never got the sense they were that far apart in age. There was one point where the sis was in one of her moods and voiced her resentment over the h leaving home. Uh...she wasn't stupid, surely she didn't expect big sis to stick around forever, giving up any chance of a future or whatever for her. She resented their mom for dying. Ugh.