Friday, February 1, 2013

BIG SKY RIVER by Linda Lael Miller




The Parable Series, Book 3
Harlequin
December 18th, 2012
978-0-373-77720-4
Contemporary/Western Romance
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Dawn (love2read28@gmail.com)
Obtained by Library

 


Sheriff Boone Taylor loves his little town of Parable, Montana and being the sheriff is just icing on the cake. What he misses the most are his boys that  his sister and brother-in-law are raising after Boone’s wife’s sudden death years before. Now Boone needs to step up to the plate and become the father everyone knows he can be for his two sons after an accident lands his sister’s husband in the hospital. Nervous but hopeful, Boone finds being a dad is hard work yet he finds that he loves it as well. What Boone doesn’t realize is that the woman next door, that city slicker, Tara Kendall, has stolen his heart when he wasn’t even expecting it. Now these two need to find a way to deal with their changed relationship even as they find that love can indeed happen a second time around.

Linda Lael Miller is the queen of western romances and she delivers a wonderful, at times emotional, story of two lonely people who find that their relationship has just changed into something so much more. With a down-home type of writing style, likable and believable characters with stories that are emotional as well as delightful, Ms. Miller delivers another winner in her Parable Series with BIG SKY RIVER. We met Boone and Tara from the first and second books (Big Sky Country & Big Sky Mountain) and the reader is treated to a town that is just as delightful as it is enjoyable. Though the community of Parable isn’t center stage, it still delighted me whenever the author went over to different parts of the town such as the water tower and Boone’s desire to get rid of a problem sheriff that was mentioned in past books. Ms. Miller is a wonderful storyteller who knows how to draw her readers in, give them something to fall in love with and leave them aching for more.

The characters from the first two books continue to pop in even as you find yourself meeting some new ones as well. Ms. Miller does a wonderful job in creating some amazing characters to fall in love,. They are quite life-like and have vulnerabilities as well as flaws that every human has in real life. The connection between Tara and Boone is wonderfully electric. Tara resists falling for someone like Boone. Boone refuses to see that there is more below Tara’s surface. These two will find that falling in love is just the tip of the iceburg for them. There are layers upon layers as readers find out about Boone’s wife, her death and what made him so leery of falling for another woman. We also learn about Tara’s disastrous marriage and her heartbreak that she never told her friends about. Each page as the author slowly uncovers these layers is like a rich tapestry being uncovered one frame at a time and Ms. Miller does it beautifully.

I am eager to see what happens next in Parable, Montana and hope the wait for the next book isn’t a long one. If you enjoy sexy, brooding cowboys who wear jeans very well and the women who can tame their wild hearts, then you need to grab any of Linda Lael Miller’s books as she delivers stories packed with heart, heat and love. BIG SKY RIVER is a story that you will want to read over and over again.


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