Tag: Lynda Chance

Guest Review: The Rancher’s Virgin Acquisition by Lynda Chance

Posted November 4, 2012 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 1 Comment

Judith’s review of The Rancher’s Virgin Acquisition by Lynda Chance

When the stagecoach that is carrying Emma Martin to her new job in Denver is attacked and robbed in the wilds of Colorado, she is the only survivor. Alone and terrified, she is rescued by Luke Butler, a rancher who knows only one way. His way.


When Luke Butler finds Emma Martin, he has no other choice but to bring her back to his ranch. Soon, his life is turned upside down by a female who doesn’t know how to mind and who doesn’t know how to stay put.

The battle that follows is a clash of wills, a test of tempers, and a lesson in love.

Lynda Chance is an author who never backs away from writing about uber-alpha males, the kind of men who take charge, hand out dictums and insist on obedience whether a female likes it or not.  It’s just the kind of heroes a reader will encounter in her books.  This short novel is no exception.  Set in the Old West, this story begins with the harsh realities of life in a locality that has little patience with weakness and which sucks the life out of those who are strong enough to survive.  Emma was a woman alone and who had fabricated herself as a widow in order to keep from being viewed by strangers as a “loose woman” or a woman on the loose.  She was an orphanage raised individual with few employable skills but seeking to have a life with the few she possessed.  That her stage coach was robbed and one of the thieves chose to avoid killing her was simply the “luck of the draw.”  She was a woman with a lame leg and a very poor self-image to go along with it.  She was aware of how unattractive she was, how unwanted by anyone for marriage.  Her virginity would remain a carefully guarded secret.

She was totally unprepared for Luke Butler’s overbearing, lustful response to her and she took the opportunity to hide her limp behind a new injury to her ankle sustained when she was running from the stage coach.  She was completely surprised that Luke continued to see her as attractive and continued to do everything in his power to protect and heal her.  Yet he didn’t want love or marriage and as she was a widow, he knew that no one would think less of him or her if they “indulged” in a bit of a fling.  Little did he know what awaited him when he finally bedded her.

This is a really enjoyable short novel, easily read in one sitting, and with characters who are straight out of the history books and whose actions and attitudes accurately reflect those of their times.  Luke’s overbearing insistence on Emma’s obedience is really for her protection from nature and surroundings that were hostile to human habitation.  She found that out when she went walking by herself and found herself in a den of rattlesnakes.  It is a story that also allows the reader to see inside the mind and heart of a man who had come to accept that he would be alone, whose life was ordered and arranged around the demands of his huge ranch and who had come to accept that the “gentle sex” were only there for his occasional needs.  Emma took his heart by storm but Ms Chance writes in such a way that the reader can see into the thoughts of a man who didn’t have time for romance, who didn’t take time to “refine” his social graces or who perhaps had never had any such graces.  In the same way Luke was a total “education” in dealing with a man who never backed down, who told it like it was, who didn’t play social games.  This encounter between the two really was a journey of discovery for both of them.

I like this author and her books are very entertaining.  She writes strong gritty characters who are dealing with the realities of living in harsh times, whether historical or contemporary.  She has been criticized for the overbearing nature of her heroes but she likes them like that.  No matter what, she writes a good story and one that will be a very nice reading experience and won’t take up a huge chunk of the reader’s time.  I found this to be a really fine read.

I give it a rating of 4 out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

This book is available from Self-Pub. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.


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Guest Review: Staking His Claim by Lynda Chance

Posted August 27, 2012 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 0 Comments

Judith’s review of Staking His Claim by Lynda Chance

Twenty-one-year-old Elaina Ruiz has only just begun college when she meets Raul Vega for the first time. Recognizing his ruthless intensity for what it is, she doesn’t correct him when he assumes she is an eighteen-year-old freshman.

Raul Vega has never met a woman he couldn’t do without. Until he meets Elaina Ruiz and knows she has to belong to him–even if it means waiting for her to grow up.

People enter into relationships for a variety of reasons, and it is a part of the Western mystique that the rough and tough cowboy is a kind of love-em-and-leave-em rather than enter into any kind of relationship. Add in the fact that most of these Western cowboy types, at least in romance fiction, are alpha males who stake their claim on their women and that’s the end of the discussion most of the time. Now up the ante with the cultural norms of the Hispanic machismo and the intensity between lovers changes, especially when a man worries that the woman of his choice will be snatched away from him as he waits for her to “grow up.” The problem in this story is that Elena was already grown up and yet she chose not to share that information with Raul right away.

Now some readers really don’t like stories about very dominant males and the fact that Raul begins the intimate language so early in his acquaintance with Elena bothers those readers. I took it another way. I think that Raul was a man who was definitely a man who had successfully walked away from just about every woman he had ever fancied except Elena. She broke through his defenses and he made a determination that she was “the one.” In his mind she was already his. That kind of relational projection, in spite of the realities, can often bring on a terminal case of endearments that, on the surface of it, may seem inappropriate. From Raul’s perspective, it was just what it was–him staking his claim.

This is not a very long read but it is definitely erotic and intense. Ms Chance writes stories about over-the-top alpha males, dominance and submission (whether in a formal D/s relationship or not) and a kind of man who finds his woman and the die is cast for all time. So it was with Raul and Elena and it is that kind of focus–not really obsessive but certainly a done deal in Raul’s mind. It is full of hot loving and it the kind of read that fits in to a shorter reading time or a reader’s busy life. I found it curiously engaging–not the kind of relationship I would be comfortable in, but I think it is indicative of a different cultural perspective and for that reason I found it an interesting story.

I give it a rating of 3.75 out of 5

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

This novel is self-published by the author and was released in March, 2012. You can buy it here or here in e-format.


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