At the Millionaire's Request & Reckless Destiny

At the Millionaire's Request Teresa Southwick Grade: B Sensuality: Warm

Reckless Destiny Teresa Southwick Grade: C+ Sensuality: Warm

When I last wrote about Teresa Southwick here a little over three years ago, it was in in response to a blog comment. At the time I realized I should take her off my radar given that she'd earned a few D's from me. I had a change of heart at some point in the summer of 2006 and picked up At the Millionaire's Request. As I mentioned in a very recent ATBF column, I'm glad I did because it's quite a nice little read.

ATMR is the second Silhouette Special Edition I've read. It doesn't appear that she had an SSE for 2007, although I am glad to see there are a few backlisted SSE's for her that I can watch for at UBS's or on BSJ. Like the SSE I'd earlier enjoyed - and blogged about - it earns a straight B from me. Both stories, as the SSE's I've read tend to do, focus around family, and in specific, a parent (or parent figure) currently not married who falls in love. Since I enjoy widower stories, I've gotten lucky, although in ATMR, the hero is not a widower - just a single father with a major distrust of women, particularly women without money.

After Gavin Spencer, a powerful and handsome man whose son stopped talking after suffering a traumatic brain injury, searches for the best speech therapist, he makes teacher M.J. Taylor an offer she can't refuse: more money than she could imagine to bring his son's voice back.

After her son was killed in an accident, widowed M.J. Taylor ended her career as a speech therapist; it was simply too painful to get as close to her young clients now that her son was dead. But she's got horrendous debts left by her husband, and takes on the position. Originally she tries to do both jobs, but after she nearly falls asleep at the wheel one day, Gavin offers her even more money to quit her teaching job and move into his mansion to continue therapy with his son.

As I wrote in the ATBF column, "the premise screams 'romance novel'," but in a series romance, that's pretty much what I look for. Because the SSE line focuses on relationships with nary a suspense or mystery subplot to be found, having a basic and recognizable premise helps me get into the stories more deeply, and more quickly, and because these are short reads (250 pages), that's a good thing.

Just about all the relationships in this book worked. M.J. helps Gavin get to know his son - and how to deal with injury's after-effects - in such a way that he can't help but come to love her. Although, it must be said, it is clear to the reader (yet maybe not to M.J. or Gavin) that he loves her for herself. As for M.J., she comes to love Gavin, but it's not all peaches and cream. His "gold-digger" fears and her worries about getting too close to her new charge, as well as her out-spoken behavior, set the scene for conflict between the two, as does their mutual attraction. The relationships between M.J. and her mother and aunt are also nice, but the three living together in a house her mother deeded over to her when she married, was another only in romance premise, particularly because of M.J.'s concerns that she will be responsible for losing her mother's house because her husband saddled her with his gambling debts.

At the Millionaire's Request is a quiet romance without a lot of action. Because of its focus on the small things, in small steps, for all of its romance conventions it reads realistically. There are some very touching moments, and if you want to get away from the tumult of the holiday season, save a few hours to read this one.

Reckless Destiny was less successful for me. It wasn't bad by any means, but it wasn't quite good enough to earn a recommendation, even a qualified one, which is why it earned a C+ from me. As with Southwick's superior Winter Bride, the hero doesn't believe the heroine can withstand life on the frontier, and does his best to stay away from her, even though the kiss they shared some years ago is something he remembers as much as she does...which is why he pushed her away then as well.

Cady Tanner moves to the Arizona Territory in the early 1880s to take a position as teacher at an army fort. Captain Kane Carrington can't believe she's the new teacher; what would possess a rich Easterner to move to such a harsh environment? After all, look what happened to his wife - she died as a result of live on the frontier. As Cady settles into her new life, she encounters trouble from a student...and a troubling attraction to Kane that won't go away.

For his part, Kane is such the alpha male that he's making it more difficult for her to earn her students' respect. But he can't seem to stay away from Cady, try as he might, and when she sneaks out one night against Kane's orders (he's second in command at the fort) to warn her brother - who lives in the wild - that a nasty Native American wants his scalp, he follows her. I'm sure you can imagine what happens when he finds her in the rain, as well as what happened when her brother happened upon them in a nearby cave the next morning.

There are some sweet moments in this story, and Cady and Kane aren't poorly written. The boy who wants to make trouble for Cady, though, should have PLOT DEVICE written on his forehead, and that lack of subtlety was a problem. I minded less Kane's friend, another soldier, who knew Kane loved Cady; to needle his friend into facing his feelings, he tries to make the Captain jealous.

Reckless Destiny shows Southwick as a journeyman author. I believe this was her second release; the next year's Winter's Bride and the year after's Blackstone's Bride showed marked improvement in her skills and the former landed in the sixth slot of my ballot for Top Ten Western/Frontier Romances.

A quick look at her page on Fantastic Fiction indicates another book in April, and given that the title is The Millionaire and the M.D., I've got my fingers crossed that it's another SSE.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit