Jennifer’s review of So Tough to Tame (Jackson #3) by Victoria Dahl.

Tough to tame, but not too tough to love… Charlie Allington is supposed to be on the fast track to the top-a small-town girl who was making it big in her career. Instead, she’s reeling from a scandal that’s pretty much burned all her bridges. Now, out of options, she needs a place to lick her wounds and figure out her future. True, working at a ski resort in rugged Jackson Hole, Wyoming, isn’t her dream job. But if there’s one perk to coming back, it’s a certain sexy hometown boy who knows how to make a girl feel welcome.

Cowboy Walker Pearce never expected a grown-up Charlie to be temptation in tight jeans. She’s smart and successful-way out of league for a man like him. But he’s not about to let that, or his secrets, get in the way of their blazing-hot attraction. Yet when passion turns to something more, will the truth-about both of them-send her out of his life for good…or into his arms forever?

I am a huge Victoria Dahl fan, so I jumped at the chance to review So Tough to Tame. Unfortunately, I think I’m tired of the setting, characters, and themes of this series.

The third book in the Jackson series features Charlie Allington, who grew up in the area but moved away to become a security expert. Her last job ended badly in scandal and disgrace, but she’s now been hired as the head of security at a new resort in the area. The resort owners are an old friend from high school and her husband, and the fresh start Charlie was expecting turns sour when her “friend” takes every opportunity to rub Charlie’s failure in her face and generally make her life miserable. The cowboy of this story (because this series is ALL about the cowboys) is Walker Pearce. Walker is currently unemployed after losing his job at a dude ranch due to his own scandal. Charlie and Walker knew each other in high school, and when Charlie moves into the infamous Stud Ranch apartments the series revolves around, she and Walker strike up a kind of friends-with-benefits relationship.

Charlie was a fairly likeable character. She was the proverbial good girl in high school–smart, sweet, quiet, and crushing on the popular Walker. Once she moves away, though, she develops more confidence and becomes a “party girl” (her words), which apparently means she sometimes drinks at bars, sleeps with some men, and wears high heels. Admittedly I’ve never lived in a small town for any length of time, but I had trouble believing that some of Charlie’s normal 21st century female behavior would cause THAT much comment. (Skinny jeans? How scandalous!) The clearer scandal, though, is the embezzlement that drives her out of her last job, and that was a pretty compelling story. I’ve actually met people who were inadvertently caught up in corporate embezzlement, and that kind of thing causes so much heartbreak for even the innocent bystanders. I felt bad for Charlie and was rooting for her to get her life back.

Walker was a decent character, too. He is dyslexic, which has driven him to see himself as stupid and to not aim too high in his professional or personal life. I would actually have liked to see this explored a little more and see more of him coming to terms with who he really is and what he wants from life. I felt like his turnaround near the end was just too abrupt. Still, I appreciated that he’s a working class hero who struggles with real issues.

The problem is, despite a few twists, I feel like this book was just a retread of the same story the other two novels in the series told. Woman in trouble, trying to escape her past and create a new life in Jackson Hole. Playboy cowboy, charming on top but with a hard, troubled edge underneath. Mix in some secrets, some sex-as-power themes, and a lack of genuine, honest conversation between the lovers, and boom, there’s your story. What felt at least interesting in the first book began to feel a little cliched by this last book, and I found my attention waning.

Dahl is still very skillful at creating natural sounding dialog and sex scenes that further the relationship between the hero/heroine, and she adds a set of likeable secondary characters. Aunt Rayleen has been a fun diversion throughout the series, and it was lovely to see her get a HEA, too. Unfortunately, I just didn’t find enough new ground in this book to hold my interest fully.

Grade: 3.75 out of 5

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