My favorite of the series so far–and it’s the final novel! Figures… 🙁
Love with a Perfect Cowboy
by Lori Wilde
Tagline:
New York Times bestselling author Lori Wilde returns to Cupid, Texas, and asks the question: Do you ever forget your first love?
Review:
Cupid, Texas gets a Letters to Juliet twist in Love with a Perfect Cowboy, and it was very nicely done. It’s the ultimate “lovers with a past” story, with a family feud tossed in for good measure.
The feud began back in the prequel novella (One True Love) when John Fant left Elizabeth Nielson at the altar to marry Millie Greenwood, and it’s all coming to a head ninety years later in the final book of the series with Millie’s great-granddaughter Melody and Luke Nielson.
Fifteen years earlier, the two had a secret relationship that culminated on a tragedy on the night of their first and only kiss. Now Cupid’s suffering from the worst drought in–well, forever–and Luke, now the mayor, has gone to Manhattan to try and lure Melody away from her ad agency job to help her home town out.
It’s not too hard to do, since she’s just been fired from that job for being “too honest”. Ouch.
Oh, and she’s also been dumped by her live-in boyfriend…or so the doorman of their building informs her. Yes, the doorman.
Obviously, she is not having a stellar day.
Melody agrees to go back, but insists that any kind of relationship between the two of them would be crazy and can never happen.
Except that they might have accidentally spent the night together (in every sense of the word) in New York. And once they’re living in the same town again? Yeah, it’s next to impossible to keep their hands off each other, let alone keep others from seeing how they feel about each other.
But there’s a real crisis going on in town, between the drought and dearth of tourists–not to mention the feud is still alive and well with most of their family members. How can this possibly end well?
It does, of course (Hello! It’s a romance novel ;)) and really, that’s my only issue with the book. The ending feels a little too pat and neat after all the deliciously-well done angst and drama of the rest of the book.
On the strength of the first 95+% of the novel, though, this is a solid four-star read. I really enjoyed the characters of Melody and Luke. I especially loved their internal monologues in the early portion of the book, when they were fighting the attraction they both felt. As the book progressed, they both told some rather significant lies to each other which is usually a negative for me, but the reasons behind them were solid and Melody especially did an excellent job of coming clean.
Soooo…all’s well that ends well, then 🙂
I’m sorry to say goodbye to the people of Cupid, Texas; but the strength of this novel gives me great hope that Ms. Wilde’s next book and series will be one to look forward to.
Rating: 4 stars / B+
I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.