Billy Bob Walker Got Married (Harper Monogram) [Paperback]

Lisa G. Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harper Monogram | Publication Date: April 1993

To please her rich father, Shiloh Pennington is about to marry a suitable young man, but she still yearns for the touch of former flame Billy Bob Walker, a handsome yet gentle rogue despised by her father. Original.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harpercollins (Mm) (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061080713
• ISBN-13: 978-0061080715
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow. A sweet and sexy southern romance..., May 17, 2004

By 

Casey V (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Billy Bob Walker Got Married (Harper Monogram) (Paperback)

Shiloh Pennington is the pampered daughter of the richest man in Sweetwater, Mississippi. She's a good girl, and is very close to her father; she does her best to please him and to live up to his expectations, including getting engaged to Michael, Judge Sewell's son.

Billy Bob Walker is known for getting into fights and in general being the town's favorite subject for gossip. He's also Judge Sewell's unacknowledged illegitimate son.

Four years ago, Shiloh and Billy Bob had a secret and very sweet romance, until her father found out and broke them up. They went their separate ways--she to college and he to help out on his grandfather's farm. Both are heartbroken, but her father, and circumstances, had done a very thorough job of driving them apart.

Now, Billy is in jail for getting into a brawl and is unable to pay the fine. Shiloh meets him there after getting caught for speeding (when she finally snapped and had to get away from the men in her life.) They make a deal--she pays his fine in exchange for his agreeing to a marriage in name to her, so that she won't have to marry her fiance.

So begins their path to happiness, but it's very rocky--he has his pride and his struggles to make something of himself. He's also had to face a lifetime of people thinking he's worthless trash, especially his father. She's trying to find herself and to move away from the shadow of her father's influence (he disowned her completely after her marriage). There are outside factors working to drive them apart as well, such as the Sewells, Shiloh's father, and the whole town's prejudices. The small town itself is protrayed very well and gives the book an authentic air. And the dialogue feels natural and just flows so well, you can hear the southern drawls in their speech.

That was just a description of the book's bones and doesn't come close to conveying the sheer emotion and poignancy in the story. The characters are drawn so realistically and nothing feels overly contrived. I like how Billy is characterized: he's tough, possessive, and just such a man. After he and Shiloh get married, she looks over at him and muses, "I wonder what kind of husband you'd really make." And he answers without hesitation, "A damned good one." He appears to be a worthless good-time boy, but in reality he works and gives everything he has for those he loves. And Shiloh is no passive Southern belle; she holds on to the principles she knows are right, and she's strong enough to take on her father, the town, and her new circumstances, all the while helping to build up a happy future for her and Billy.

This is a very compelling love story. It's about unconditional love that can overcome the biggest obstacles, it's about being true to yourself, and it's about how loving can help make people stronger. The ending is very well-done and the conflicts are realistically and satisfyingly resolved. This is one of the best romance novels I've ever read, and I highly recommend it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.75 stars, January 14, 2011

By 

maldivianbookreviewer "Book Reviews - From th... (Maldives) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Billy Bob Walker Got Married (Harper Monogram) (Paperback)

My first Lisa G. Brown was picked up because of the various recommendations of the title on the Amazon romance discussion forum. This title kept cropping up on various threads on the forum which led me to obtain a copy of this title, which I had a real hard time getting shipped to Maldives since its out-of-print now. It might be because I had such high expectations because of the rave reviews this story has received that I didn't enjoy this one as much as I thought that I would. However that doesn't mean that this is a bad read by any means but rather it didn't live up to all my high expectations which I believe tends to happen to us readers now and again.

27 year old William Robert Walker aka Billy Bob Walker comes from the wrong side of the town of Sweetwater. The illegitimate son of the honorable Judge Robert Sewell who has ignored his very existence by forgetting his affair with the innocent country girl Ellen Walker, Billy's mother, Billy has a chip a mile wild on his shoulders that lands him in spots of trouble now and then. With a reputation for being wild, no one really sees the ambitious heart that beats within Billy and his aspirations to become someone who would one day show his good for nothing father that the son he had ignored for all his life in favor of his legitimate son Michael could make something out of himself. 6 ft 3 inches tall, long-limbed and lanky with broad square shoulders, Billy sets many a heart aflutter with his easy charm and masculinity. Billy's passion lies in becoming a veterinarian but life and its ultimate choices had inevitably ended him a little further away from attaining his dream.

22 year old Shiloh Pennington is the cossetted and protected daughter of Sam Pennington, the banker of the town of Sweetwater. A man who had risen from a low wage job at a tiny mill to become what he is today, Sam wants nothing but the best for his only daughter whom he had raised single-handedly ever since Shiloh's mother Caroline had walked out on them when Shiloh had just been 5 years old. A woman known for her beauty and loose morales when it comes to men, Sam had always kept a tight leash on Shiloh wanting to protect her from every evil in the world and tries his damnedest to shape Shiloh to follow his dreams and ambitions for her rather than her own. Shiloh is a woman trapped in a world created for her by her father and she tries her hardest to please Sam in every way possible until she breaks off her engagement to Michael Sewell, an act that infuriates Sam to no end.

The overly protected Shiloh who had always stayed away from men had her world turned upside down the summer she had turned 18, when she had run into Billy Bob Walker when he had been sent by his grandfather to landscape Pennington's yard. Their affair had started out innocently enough and had been brought to a cruel halt by Sam who had presumed to know that Billy Bob Walker wasn't what his Shiloh deserved or needed in life. Now 4 years later, these two cross paths again when Billy who is in jail serving time for riling up his father in court finds himself in the company of Shiloh who is brought in for totaling her car by speeding, trying in reality to get away from the stifling presence of the Sewells who her father tries to force her to accept. And when Shiloh sees her way out of getting married to Michael and getting back at Sam for trying to force her affections on a man who frightens her to no end by proposing marriage to Billy in exchange for his freedom from jail, a shaky relationship of sorts develops between two people who are wary of trusting the other as past hurts and Shiloh's father tries his best to drive these two apart.

I liked:

1- The premise of this story. I found myself intrigued with the concept of the heroine offering money to the hero to marry her just for convenience's sake. And with such vast differences in their upbringings there was bound to be a lot of problems which Ms. Brown tackled with throughout the story.

2- The vivid descriptions of the small town life that brought this book to life and gave it an added lustre. It is always heartening to see a story bring to life what goes on in small towns such as the one in this story.

3- As I read through this story, I was at first really frustrated with Shiloh's character as she kept swaying back and forth between her feelings for Billy, which always pisses me off when it comes to heroines. But in the end, Shiloh proves that she loves Billy for who he is and does some growing up of her own and stands up for herself in front of her controlling father which earned her my approval in the end.

I disliked:

1- The way Shiloh couldn't make up her mind till around more than half way through the book. It kept my head spinning in circles whilst Shiloh tried to divide her loyalties between the father who had raised her with love although Sam controls her life and she lets it happen; and her husband whom she has a hard time accepting at first.

2- Billy's doggone pride that kept interfering with what was taking place between Shiloh and himself. As feelings continued to intensify between the two, Billy has a hard time accepting the fact that Shiloh's upbringing had provided her with the best of things in life which Billy is unable to provide her with. Sam's interference certainly didn't help matters but I wished at times I could slap Billy on the face to make him sit up and see what he was doing to their relationship with his beloved pride to keep him company by his side.

Reviewed by: Maldivian Book Reviewer

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Southern Romance, January 25, 2006

By 

Margaret T. Nelson (Gaston, South Carolina United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Billy Bob Walker Got Married (Harper Monogram) (Paperback)

I'm a Southerner that has lived all over the US and the world with my military hubby of 25 years. What makes us a unique group of people comes through Ms. Brown's books better than any author I've read. She has captured the Southern psyche and mannerisms.

Billy Bob Walker reminds us that people and circumstances aren't always what they seem on the outside. Billy Bob, a young man from the wrong side of the blanket, as well as the tracks, is far more noble and honorable than his priveleged half-brother, Michael Sewell who has had the advantage of the best things and education that money can buy. Everyone in Sweetwater, Mississippi, expects the heroine Shiloh to marry Michael. But as fate or Cupid would have it, Billy and Shiloh fall in love. They have a tough fight ahead of them. Her father, his father (though Judge Sewell has never acknowledged Billy), and Michael all try through hook and crook to keep our cross-starred lovers apart.

I discovered Lisa G. Brown's books through BILLY BOB WALKER GOT MARRIED in a bunch of used books I bought. I loved it so much that I acquired all three of her other books used (SLEEPING AT THE MAGNOLIA, CRAZY FOR LOVIN' YOU and HIGH STAKES which is written under the pen name Dana Warren Smith--all are out of print). I'm wondering when and if she plans to write more. I eagerly await her next novel.