Rowena’s review of Montana Legacy by R.C. Ryan.
Hero: Jesse McCord
Heroine: Amy Parrish
They’re the McCords…three rugged, sexy cowboy cousins who’ll inherit the family range–if they seek the treasure hidden on it. But even more precious are the women who can tame their wild hearts…She was the one person who shook Jesse McCord’s quiet determination. She was the only one he ever let in, body and soul. Then suddenly Amy Parrish was gone and the oldest McCord cousin devoted his life to the family ranch. Now Amy is back, offering help to Jesse find the McCord gold. Yet Jesse’s not about to give her a second chance, and he hopes his pride will protect him from her irresistible charms. But under the wide prairie skies a dangerous, unseen enemy is fast closing in, threatening Amy and Jesse’s very lives and the promise of their …MONTANA LEGACY.
This is the first cowboy novel that I’ve picked up in a very long time and it started out pretty darn good. It was the first time in a long that I’ve gotten excited over cowboys. This series follows three cousins, Jess, Wyatt and Zane McCord as they pick up the treasure hunt for the family’s long lost gold. Their grandfather, Coot McCord always believed that the gold was somewhere close and he spent his entire life dedicated to finding the lost gold and returning it to where it belonged…with their family.
Everyone thought Coot was crazy for continuing to search for gold that is probably long gone but Coot didn’t give a shit, he was going to find that damn gold or die trying…and he sure did die trying. After his death, people thought that the search for the lost gold would go away but they thought wrong because before anyone knows what’s what, the three boys that grew up on the ranch together were brought back together by Coot’s dying wish.
Jesse, Wyatt and Zane were once young boys that used to run around the ranch getting things dirty, being loud as all get out and just being boys until both Wyatt and Zane’s parents moved away, taking Wyatt and Zane with them. All of the good times came to an end and only Jesse was left behind. In all the years that passed since the boys moved away, they never came back to visit Grandpa Coot and it left Jesse a little (a lot) bitter. Both Wyatt and Zane come back for the funeral and the reading of the will.
Along with the return of Wyatt and Zane, circumstances brings Amy Parrish, the woman that Jesse was madly in love with and who disappeared without a word, back to Montana. Her father is sick and she’s the only person left that can care for him so she comes home to help care for her ailing father. So just when Jesse is trying to get a grip on his cousins being back, he finds out that Amy’s back too.
The story had a lot of promise in the book but somewhere along the way, I lost interest in the book. I can honestly say that I finished this book so that I can hurry up and move on to the next book. It’s not that the book wasn’t my cup of tea, it was more that I wasn’t too invested in the story. I liked Jesse but I didn’t love him. I thought Amy was okay but she wasn’t extraordinary. The story started off well but it lost me somewhere around page 150.
By the time the end came, I knew what was going to happen, who the bad guy was and how it all tied together. Usually, I suck at that stuff but in this book, the author made it very easy to spot those things right from the jump.
Jesse was one of those hot headed heroes that is always spoiling for a fight. Every time he got pissed off, he wanted to bust someone’s head open and while there are quite a few heroes that come to mind when I think of hot headed heroes, with Jesse it was annoying. It was understandable why he was mad at Wyatt and Zane but the way that he pouted made it more annoying than anything else.
Then there was Amy. Amy was one of those good girl heroines. She’s great at this, has a heart of gold but she didn’t really stand out. At least not to me. I read and read about how much Jesse wants her and how big his feelings are for her but not once, did I get why he felt that way. Sure, she came back home to take care of her father but who wouldn’t? I would in a hot minute and I know a lot of women who would do the same. I just didn’t get what was so special with her.
Their whole romance was pretty tame as well. They’re brought back together because someone is attacking Amy’s ranch and Amy’s life was in danger more than once. Jesse wants to take care of his woman but because her father hates his family, he can’t move them into his house to keep an eye out on her so instead, he has to sleep in her barn because Otis Parrish wasn’t having no McCord’s in his house. So they had sex in the barn and slept together in the barn and then walked over to the house and had breakfast with her father. What a weird kind of romance. Jesse and Amy were first loves and usually I eat these stories up but I just couldn’t get into this one. It was like a boot leg The Notebook and I ended up just not caring for it.
I didn’t hate this book, I just didn’t like it very much. I mean, it started out great and I had such high hopes for it but then it lost me and I was much more interested in the secondary characters than the main ones. I want to read Wyatt and Zane’s books, mostly so I can see who they end up with and if the series gets any better.
Grade: 2.75 out of 5
This book is available from Forever. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
Dang. I was hoping you’d love it, so I had an excuse to run out and get it. I love westerns 🙂 I guess I’ll still add it to my wishlist and pick it up if I see it, but I won’t make a special trip to the bookstore for it.
I read this book. I didn’t have any problems with the H/H, but I had major issues with the editing. There were so many inconsistencies I wanted to scream.
I hate editing problems – it causes the flow to just stop…..that bothers me worse than a bad storyline.