Morie is a very rich heiress who is tired of her father's constant protection and treating her like she would break. He keeps pushing her to marry a man who he considers to be the 'right' man so it turns out that anyone she dates is really just interested in her money - not her. Even though Morie's dad owns a huge ranch, he will not let her do anything on the ranch except ride the horses so she leaves and gets a job as a ranch hand on the Kirk ranch to prove that she can succeed without her father's influence. She dresses and acts like a ranch hand so nobody knows who she really is.She does pretty well at the job until her boss' girlfriend, Gelly, feels threatened by her and makes her life miserable, trying to get her fired. Gelly tries to intimidate Morie but she doesn't take it and talks back to Gelly. Gelly goes to Mallory to tell him what happened but changed the facts to make it look like Morie was to blame for the whole incident, trying to get her fired. Morie does finally get fired when a family heirloom was found planted in her bag. In the meantime, Morie has fallen in love with Mallory but changes her opinion of him when he fires her without letting her defend herself.This story is cute and different with a rich girl pretending to be poor and working for her living (which she had never done before). I could really relate to the characters and liked them. Morie is a strong, fun character. Mallory and his brothers all have problems, but Mallory has more than the other two. He thinks that because he is not handsome, he doesn't have much to offer, and that women are only interested in him for his money. Wasn't planning to read this today, but after reading book number two yesterday and being intrigued about the love story between Mallory and Morie, which was this book, and wondering how it all played out especially after seeing them being a loving couple in Wyoming Fierce so I decided to just go ahead and read and see what it was all about.So like I said in my review of Wyoming Fierce that I was missing the old formulaic stories of Diana Palmer that haven't appeared in her more recent book releases, and I wished she would get back to that style again. Now in Wyoming Fierce, I felt it and it brought back to those days when I read her old ones and absolutely loved them, which was great and I was hoping the rest of the series would be like this. Now with that being said, this one did have elements of her old style here like the supposed "girlfriend" of the hero trying to get rid of heroine in anyway possible, causing trouble for the hero and heroine, there was an unwanted attraction from the older hero to the younger less experienced heroine, there were tense moments between them with them going back and forth, and just the hero fighting his feelings for the heroine and grossly misjudging the heroine throughout. All those were common themes to Diana Palmer oldies and like I said was in this book, which made the book extremely, emotionally intense and a winning combination, but with that being said the feeling wasn't quite there for me. Meaning I wasn't quite taken in by their love story as it followed along and effecting me along the way along with the characters. Usually in old Diana Palmer books I would feel sucker punched or truly bad for the heroine for what the hero was doing to her with all his misjudgments of her while with the hero I would feel he was a jerk, but I knew there was a reason behind it because he was hurt along time ago and was only acting that way to keep his guard up so he wouldn't be hurt again so therefore I would forgive him for his actions, also it didn't hurt that he truly seemed sorry and basically made up to the heroine for all his wrong doings. But in this particular story, I really didn't feel any of that or felt moved by their love story really. In fact I didn't feel like they were falling in love at all instead I was told that they were in love with each other, but I want to be shown that through their interactions and their actions and so on to show how everything was changing between them and growing along the way. To me, there wasn't that much development or interactions between the two of them that I would have liked to seen. I just wanted to see more than I got. There was just too much everyone else in the way that it kind of got distraction between the brothers, the convict, the "girlfriend, etc with less focus on the couple. Really they only have like two scenes, passionate, together where the focus was purely on them and meant to show relationship development and then that was it, and I didn't like that. Especially when Mallory, once he found out he was wrong about her, had this huge light bulb moment where Morie was his sun and everything to him and he couldn't live without her. And suddenly he was magically in love with her and missing her when she left his ranch. It didn't feel right, and was almost too quick especially with his sudden devotion to her. I would have felt better if there was an inkling of feeling in him and he may have realized he did the wrong thing and he might have felt more for her then he originally thought then just build on there. Instead it was like he was slapped in the face and had that big realization. Okay? Like I said it didn't feel right, as well as the fact that Morie forgave pretty much right away even though he grossly misjudged her thanks to his "girlfriend's" help framing Morie for stealing one of his family herilooms then he kicked her off his property basically. I get that she loved him, but it was just too quick and didn't feel right. Just whole portrayal of the love story didn't feel right which was a shame because that was the part I was most looking forward to, but found myself disappointed with it. I just didn't get the feels. And they just didn't work here. They worked as a loving couple better in Wyoming Fierce than in their own love story, which is sad.The plot was okay with lots going on beyond the love story part. A few little twists and turns along the way with Mallory and Morie coming out on top. There were aspects in there that were meant to add danger and suspense to the book, but I found that it was less than successful, feeling like they were just thrown in there to throw in there to add another obstacle in their way even though it wasn't much of an obstacle, though I guess it was more to bring them back together and show Morie's bravery. But still it just kind of fell flat for me and unnecessary. It just needed, the danger part, needed to be hyped up more and shown to be a truly dangerous situation and not a sort of one. And then when the bad did what he did at the end it was kind like what was the point. He was just a weak villain anyway and was just all over the place. But like I said I think it was meant to show Morie's character more than anything as well as reunite the pair. I liked Morie. She was brave and smart. She wanted to be independent. I liked how Morie wanted to break away from her rich father and make her own way and learn and not just be this spoiled heiress that used daddy's money for everything without earning her way. Also she was sick of men chasing her and wanting to marry her because of who her father was and not who she was. She wanted to learn about the cattle business, but her father won't let her so she had to resort from breaking out on her own. So she posed as a poor cowgirl when she came to Mallory's ranch asking for a job, not telling him about her true identity to him. And learned the job, and even though it was hard back breaking work she never complained and did the work without fail. So she definitely had spirit and was this strong personality. She just wanted to be on her own. She never anticipated falling in love with Mallory and wanting to marry and have children with him, which was the last thing on her mind at the time when she came to his ranch. And I did like her and I did believe that she had feelings for him more than the other way around, with her feeling building over time and growing and developing then realizing she did in fact love him before he threw her off his property. So she was a heroine, strong, but sweet, caring and innocent with high morals. She even risked her own life to save Mallory's. And really my only complaint about her was that she forgave him to easily, but otherwise I liked her.As for him, I didn't know how I felt about him, though I'll put it this way I wasn't over thrilled with him and didn't really find him swoon worthy. I just didn't connect with him. I knew he had his reasons for mistrusting Lorie based on past experience, but I kind of felt like that was copout so he didn't have to deal with his feelings for her, which I believe was stating somewhere in the book, I don't know if it was from him or his brothers, but somebody. And just the way he kept getting reeled in by Gelly, the girlfriend, was kind of hard to watch because it was just so stupid. He prided himself of not trusting women, yet he was willing to trust her. And he feel hook, line, and sinker for her crap without even questioning it. Really? C'mon get your thinking cap working dude. I can't even believe he entertained her and her accusations for even a second. He didn't even love Gelly or even want her so why was he taking her words as gold? What caused her to earn his trust like that? Nothing, but he still believed it. He was just totally stupid in that regard and maybe that was one of the reason as I didn't connect or overly like him, but it was kind of ridiculous. I just didn't get it.And as for Gelly. Oh my god. What a witch? Can ya tell I didn't like her. Not that you're suppose to, but I really couldn't stand her and just wished go away. I think there was almost too much Gelly in it. More Gelly I would have liked. I get that we got her perspective and was shown what her purpose was and how she was going to accomplish her goal in such, but in reality I didn't care. I could tell from the moment she appeared on the page she was trouble with a capital T, and knew she was going to cause problems for Mallory and Morie, using any means necessary to keep them apart and I knew she was sneaky. And that all I really needed to know about her, and would have preferred her to in the background and only featured during the times when she was attempt to keep Mallory and Moire apart and that was all. I didn't need her featured with her motives and such. It was just too much and it took away from what was suppose to be most important which was the love story. So I didn't like that either and found it annoying at times. Heck she was a pain in the butt especially how she used her body to manipulate the men in the story to get what she wanted. It was sickening to watch and the men were just fools for falling for it. So I could have stand less of her.Now what I did like was that some of the characters like Morie's mom, dad, and uncle were some of Diana Palmer's older characters back in the day with King and Shelby (Morie's parents) had a book done many moons ago with their own love story being told. And it was great to see them again and mentioned and made me revisit their story that happened so long ago, and which I have read long ago and it brought back good memories. It brought back that old Diana Palmer feeling for me because some of her older books were what she wrote the best and it was good to catch up with some old characters and seeing what had been going on in their lives and they lived. King and Shelby parents to two children with one of their children being featured in their own book and getting their love story so they've been together, happily, for a really long time and were doing well in their marriage. There were some cute moments between the parents, and it showed how truly in love they still were even after all these years, and it was nice to witness. And it showed how they were as parent as well, which kind of nice with King being this loving yet overprotective father while Shelby was the sweet, local, and loving mother always there for her children. And they had some of those qualities back in their own book with King being stubborn and overprotective with Shelby being a sweetheart just they were in their own book so they're characters haven't really changed that much either, which was great to see. And we even got a recap of their love story in a nutshell, which brought me back to their love story as well. Also just revisiting the characters was nice as well and brought a nice reminder of past characters. And they weren't the only old characters mentioned either. Others were name dropped in there as well, though not much update was provided, but that was okay. But I really liked this part of the book and was probably one of the more enjoyable of the entire book, which was kind sad since they were only meant to be minor characters. But I liked the amount that they were there and never really felt overwhelmed by them being there.Overall, it was okay. I just expected more out of the love story than I got. Just other things seemed to take over and kind of divert, too much, off of Mallory and Morie as a loving couple. I wanted to see the growth between them as well as the tension and the raw emotions surrounding them. I didn't feel it. It was more I was told it than anything else. I just wasn't swept away with their love story, and I wasn't overly thrilled with him. He needed to do a bit more to make him more relatable and redeemable in my eyes. I needed his growth the most and not just have this sudden revelations about his feelings for her. I know I was told he was hurt by not having her in his life, but I didn't feel his pain, hurt or anguish along the way. It was like "okay I messed up and I want to be with her, but I know I can't because I hurt her so bad." It wasn't big deal or didn't feel like a big deal to me. I don't know something was missing there. Maybe it was longing or the angst that I wasn't getting from him so much. I wanted see his struggle I guess, which made him kind of come to that realization. Just the love story didn't do it for me. Hopefully the third book to this series is like book two and this one because I liked book two better, feeling the more old Diana Palmer feeling that I got when I read it than I did this one. I just liked more of the angst and more of the love story/relationship development in book number two that wasn't in this one. I just more from that book then I did this one, and enjoyed it more. Just his one something was missing for me that just didn't sell me on the story. I'm glad I read book two before this one because then who knows how long it would have taken me to pick up the next book in the series. I definitely would have waited if I read this book first because I found it not as exciting or emotional like I was expecting to find. In fact I liked Morie and Mallory more/love as side characters in book two than main characters in this one.SIDE NOTE: Just a little note here and something to point out. Shelby and King have another child named Cort, and he was in this story as well, which kind of set up in this book of who his love interest would be. In this book it stated about this shy, young girl named Odalie, daughter of another set of characters from Diana's early days Heather and Cole Everett, who supposedly hates his guts and wants nothing to do with him while Cort is totally in love with her. So it sets up the book perfectly right with lots of tension and conflict with them that's utterly intriguing, right? Sounds like a book full of potential and something I would have been dying to read and ready to read and even dying to read while I would wait for it to come out. I would look forward to it and can't wait until it come to fruition. Guess what? There's a book about Cort that came out after this one. Not sure how long. I think a year or so. But I have read and I knew I read before I even started this one so I wasn't surprise that he is in this book. What did surprise me is the fact that Odalie comes off as a genuine love interest in this book and one with much possibility in the future, but that's not who Cort ends up with. It's someone completely different. Now though the set up is in this book between Odalie and Cort and they do in fact date in his book, there's not a seriousness too them in Cort's book, obviously if he ends up with someone else, that's kind of indicated or set up in this book where I could have seen, if hadn't read his book first, where the two of them did end up together. I could have seen it because the set up is there perfectly. But it doesn't happen. Also the way Odalie is described in this book and the one in Cort's book is just totally different and didn't even seem like the same person. Now maybe it's because certain events hadn't happened yet at the end of this book that happened in between to Cort's book that made her change, and I think that might be the case because she goes to New York to study music and changes, but she shouldn't have changed that much where she's almost polar opposite in her descriptions in both books. In this one she is sweet and innocent and in Cort's book she's a selfish, mean jerk that toys with the heroine in Cort's book a little too much for liking, making essentially the villain though she does change her ways at the end of Cort's book. But anyway point is that it just feels like two different characters and not the same one, adding to inconsistencies. Now like I said there is space in between these books and Diana might have changed her mind and shifted her focus, changing the storyline and characters along the way so it doesn't quite link up in some ways, though in others it does because it states in Cort's book that he did have feelings for Odalie and is totally into her like it is said in this one. So when Odalie came onto the scene I knew who she was immediately, but taken aback by her description because it wasn't the description I was expecting and not what I believed her to be when I read Cort's book as well as Cort and Odalie's relationship setup/relationship, which I didn't see it quite like that in his book. So that threw me a bit and made me pause, but I guess that's what I get for reading books out of order, right? But it just was a bit unexpected, and just something I had a tad of an issue with you even though it wasn't a huge deal either. Though now I have to go back and read Cort's book again and see if it makes sense or not to me or if Diana Palmer really just changed her mind and decided to go a different direction.
Do You like book Wyoming Tough (2011)?
Ehh. It was ok. I'll admit that I was just sucked in because it was set in Wyoming.
—daniel1234567890
Yep...another belligerent cowboy with a sweet girl....enjoyed this book very much
—misseagull
