Customer Reviews

Down Home Dixie (Harlequin American Romance)

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In Yewville, South Carolina Union soldier Kyle Sherman of Ohio is "shot" while performing at a Civil War reenactment extravaganza. When he meets Dixie Lee Smith, he finds himself attracted to the steel "Jessamine". She is confused because she reciprocates making her traitor to her home state and the Daughters of the Confederacy as she shelters a Sherman descendent even if he is the first farrier she ever met.

As they fall in love, but struggle with trust issues having been hurt and betrayed in relationships before, their mutual pasts arrive. She displays southern hospitality offering a room in her home to his northern belle. However, although Dixie Lee assumes her beloved Yankee will leave town with his former girlfriend, he will not escape without a fight as she vows the south will rise.

DOWN HOME DIXIE is an intriguing look at the War Between the States still fought in 2008 in Dixie Lee's home; as each combatant struggles with giving the peace offering of their respective heart. The story line is fun to follow especially during the heat of battle although the hostilities seem to end with sexual encounters and nothing resolved. Still readers will enjoy the gender fight between Ohio and South Carolina in which love makes for a lasting peace.

Harriet Klausner

I like a quick, romantic read as much as the next harried, thirty-something woman, but I swear, it's time to stand up and protest what's coming off the presses. I picked this up for a quarter at a library sale, and shouldn't have wasted my chump change.

The tale is convoluted, the writing difficult to follow and poorly phrased, the plot is lost in... I don't even know what kind of drug trip it could be classified as. You open the book and go from a Civil war re-inactor being lost to his nearly passing out from a root canal he just received at the dentist office (he's in the parking lot - so much for his being lost) to the hallucinating heroine who suddenly regains her senses at the sight of him (nevermind the drugs she'd been given in order to fill her cavity that practically paralyzed her in the previous paragraph). Then her car backfires and she thinks its a gunshot and blood appears on his uniform, but we're told he was shot on the battlefield earlier (which doesn't jive with it appearing on his uniform in the parking lot)... then somehow find our way to Bubba's NASCAR game and a water tower shaped like a bare hiney - which is the reason the town attracts tourists. It only gets worse from there.

Laced with raw statements like "he was typically a boob man", it made for such a warped, disjointed read that I ended up throwing it against the wall an eighth of the way in. Do the editor's even read these things before sending them to a printing press? I'm just asking, because whoever approved this drivel should've been fired. And this isn't the only one - I'm noticing a trend in Harlequin author quality. This is why there are 51 copies of this available for a penny. Don't waste your money on the shipping... and give your child a ride on the penny pony at the supermarket, instead. This one's not worth it.