A Cowboy's Secret (Code Of The West) (Silhouette Desire, No 1279) [Mass Market Paperback]

Anne McAllister (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Looking for a love story that will bring a tear to your eye and joy to your heart? Rush to the bookstore to pick up A COWBOY'S SECRET (4 1/2) by Anne McAllister. A beautiful lawyer tries to tame a rough and tough cowboy with lots of love. But even though he returns her feelings, will she still love him whe she learns his shameful secret? Creating another unforgettable loner, Ms. McAllister writes with an eloquent simplicity that speaks directly to the heart.

Melinda Helfer -- Romantic Times, March 2000

Nobody writes cowboys better than Anne McAllister, and once again she's created a strong-but vulnerable cowboy any red-blooded woman will fall in love with.

J.D Holt lives with a couple of big, painful, intensely personal secrets. One has just cost him the family ranch and landed him in jail for punching out his boss. The way J.D. sees it, Trey got what he deserved. Trey promised to see the ranch to J.D. Now he's sold it to someone else!

Who should ride to J.D.'s rescue but attorney Lydia Cochrane. Lydis is protecting secrets of her own, including that she's in love with J.D. Lydia is also the new owner of his ranch . . . and isn't willing to sell.

One of the best things about any Anne McAllister book is the humor. A Cowboy's Secret could well have been a wrenching, 3-hankie melodrama. Instead, the author mines humor from every possible source and uses it to reveal the characters' hearts and bring them to vibrant life. Grab this one as soon as it hits the shelves. I promise you won't regret it.

Lynn Turner -- WRITERS CLUB ROMANCE GROUP

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 185 pages
• Publisher: Silhouette (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0373762798
• ISBN-13: 978-0373762798
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,384,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in California and grew up there on the beaches of SoCal where I used to think I would write humorous social commentaries and pithy columns about life between "here and the pier" in Manhattan Beach.

But then I left. I went away to college and then married and moved to the Midwest. Since then I've been in the Midwest and Montana and made the mental transition to life with four seasons with no trouble at all.

In fact, last time I was in MB I looked at the inlaid terrazzo tiles in the sidewalk on the hill leading down to the pier and thought to myself, "Who on earth would put tiles in the sidewalk? It will be so hard to shovel the snow off!"

See?

Despite my beach upbringing, I was the child of transplanted okies and montanans, and my love of cowboys was apparently bred in the bone. The first man I fell in love with was a cowboy. I was five years old -- and I imprinted on him, following him everywhere, like a duck.

So when I started writing romance fiction years later, there was no question that even my CEOs and beach volleyball players and Greek tycoons were, at their heart, cowboy heroes.

McAllister heroes have a strong sense of honor, determination, competence, and a "get it done" attitude. They are more often lone wolves than they are alphas. They go their own way -- until they meet the woman who makes them want to share their life. And a lone wolf who takes on a spouse has to have some alpha in him. She definitely brings it out.

Writing has been a wonderful opportunity for me to expand my horizons, to learn more about things that interest me. It gives me license to satisfy my curiosity and to meet people from all walks of life. I love it. The ideas never seem to dry up. They are everywhere. I'm looking forward to writing a whole lot more.

I'm always glad to hear from readers so stop by my website or blog if you have comments or questions.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unexpected Surprise, April 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cowboy's Secret (Code Of The West) (Silhouette Desire, No 1279) (Mass Market Paperback)

What was unexpected about this story was not that it was excellent. It was, in fact, wonderfully written. What was unexpected about J.D.'s story was his secret depending on your perspective and I think that this is why McAllister's story about J.D. and Lydia deserved a five star rating.

What could have been cliched was minimalized in this story.The surprise was drawn out and developed in such a way that it encompassed both characters. The author succeeds in making this story about J.D. and Lydia rather than expanding it into something that has been done and redone in story telling.

I enjoyed the depth of character when it came to J.D. He is someone that it is impossible not to sympathize with. He is a man who has a misguided sense of his own worth and has to hide behind a rough exterior in order to feign his disregard for the opinion of others. The truth is that J.D. truly is worthy but that he needs Lydia, a woman who can overcome her childhood idolization of him and still love the man that is before her rather than the ideal she created as a girl.

Lydia, a smart lawyer and an even smarter woman, has a hard time figuring out what makes J.D. tick. His recalcitrance, rather than frustrating the reader as much as it did the heroine, helped us to sympathize with her instead and realize that even a woman as smart as Lydia Cochrane cannot figure out the secret which J.D. has become an expert at never alluding to or revealing.

I think Anne McAllister has drawn two wonderful characters in A Cowboy's Secret. I loved the depth of the character development, particularly on the part of J.D. as he, and those who love him, come to terms with the secret he kept for so many years.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Magic, March 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cowboy's Secret (Code Of The West) (Silhouette Desire, No 1279) (Mass Market Paperback)

Anne McAllister is the queen of the cowboy book, and her modern westerns are practically a genre of their own. Each of her hard ridin' heroes is special, but the hero of A COWBOY'S SECRET is vulnerable in an unusual way that will probably take you by surprise. The woman who loves him has a mountain to climb before she can get him to open his heart to her, and the result is a really poignant love story with an extra `magic' ingredient.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anne Does It Again, April 13, 2000

By 

Elaine in Alaska (Anchorage, AK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Cowboy's Secret (Code Of The West) (Silhouette Desire, No 1279) (Mass Market Paperback)

I've fallen in love with each and every one of Anne's Code of the West Cowboys! J.D.'s story was just as wonderful! I've decided to start rating Anne's Code of the West books on the tissue scale. This one was two completely drenched and one damp. (And I was holding back so I wouldn't wake up my husband! LOL) Thank you, Anne :-)