Customer Reviews

First Comes Love

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The entire country believes FBI Special Agent Dylan Matthews is a hero due to his recent rescues of damsels in distress. When Dylan returns to his hometown of Hot Water, California after an eight-year hiatus, the Feds inform the media he needs some R & R. However, the press spreads unconfirmed rumors that Dylan is going to marry one of the women he saved.
Though she hates the job, Kitty Wilder runs the family business, the Burning Rose brothel. All Kitty ever wanted is a conventional lifestyle with a normal job, a loving husband, and a few kids. Though her neighbors will always consider her a wild Wilder, Kitty plans to break with her family heritage and retire as the town's madam in about five weeks.

Eight years ago, a drunk Kitty and Dylan got "married" Heritage Day style. She officially registered their nuptials and the duo is legally married. Dylan returned home because a background check revealed his marital status. Though he planned to straighten out the error, Dylan soon finds he wants to remain married to Kitty even though that might break his family's heritage of upright good citizenry.

Once the reader accepts the premise that the FBI missed the fact that Dylan is legally married on previous background checks, fans will enjoy this amusing romantic romp. The story line unabashedly keeps the humor at high levels throughout the novel. Kitty and Dylan are a joy to behold as their banter and love end family traditions. FIRST COMES LOVE shows that Christie Ridgeway is a first class author.

Harriet Klausner

Though FIRST COMES LOVE can never match her Wish You Were here, Christie Ridgway manages to escape the thin premise of her plot with her endearing characters. Set in Hot Water, California, FBI agent Dylan Matthews returns to his native land to investigate the marriage scam that tied him down to Kitty Wilder more infamously known as the brothel madame. Yet when he meets her, Dylan finds her innocence beguiling and Kitty is a simple girl who goes for mini-vans and yearns to be accepted without associating herself with the Wilder woman especially her mom Samantha. He faces his own quandry as he apprehends the guilt of not having saved his best friend's wife. Their wounded hearts bounds them together but will that last? With perfect comedic timing and scinitllating pitch, Christie Ridgway pulls off her contemporary romance with laughter and fun. Her characters are real and flawed and bounces along well with the spirited and sprightly narration of Ridgway.

This was a fun read and I loved the characters. The idea of small town life and how a past can follow you was easily understood. The hero was totally likeable since he did not want to blow his own horn on his work that he has done for the FBI and he really looked at his heroine not as a "local call-girl" but as a person and made one of her dreams (the mini van) come true in a very special way. The chemistry between the two main characters was hot and it was fun reading about these two unlikely people falling in love with each other. For a good laugh and a fun romance pick up this book.

After a background check turns up that he has been married for 8 years, FBI hostage negotiator, Dylan Matthews returns to his California Gold Country hometown to seek out a divorce from the town "madam," Kitty Wilder.

In the small town of Hot Water, generations of Matthews have been lawmen, while generations of Wilder women have run the local house of ill repute. What started as a harmless stunt at the local festival's marriage ceremony the night before he left for the FBI, turned into the real deal when Kitty mailed the prank marriage license to the state capitol, and the marriage became official.

After being captivated by Kitty, Dylan questions his own heroism and whether he wants to return to his old job with the Feds or move on to something else. Meanwhile, Dylan's dad, the local judge is having a secret affair with Kitty's mom, who abandoned her when she was a baby. Kitty never really feels good enough based on her family history thanks to lots of small minds in her small town.

One of the funniest on-going gags in the book is when Dylan tells Kitty that he is trained in martial arts and knows 600 ways to kill her. Then every time she frustrates him, he repeats a number (#88 is particularly heinous apparently).

The story is at times funny, and at times really sad, particularly the tragic incident that turns Dylan into a hero, and which actually causes him to flee the area due to his own guilt. You will laugh out loud (the supermarket grocery cart incident is priceless), root for the secondary characters too. It is a quick and funny read, and you really cannot resist a lawman named Dylan and a madam named Kitty!

Christie has done it again! This story is delightful, charming and funny, yet with an emotional depth that will touch your heart. It's witty and fun, with a fascinating setting. The hero and heroine, not to mention their parents, friends, and assorted quirky acquaintances, are quickly plunged into more Hot Water, California than anyone could have anticipated. I loved finding out how they all managed to extract themselves from their respective delicious plights. What a fun read--and one you won't be able to put down!

Okay, Christie Ridgway is a talented writer and I enjoyed her other books. 'Wish you were here' and 'This perfect Kiss' are really fun and entertaining. But this one... very lame.
The characters are cookie cutter and boring. This book was funny in the beginning and then turned boring really quickly. The conversation between each person was so predictable and took forever. I found myself predicting ahead what the next move will be and they will say. The book could have been written with half the chapters or less. I am sorry.
Read the other two to start with her books and I know you will like them. Especially Wish you were here. That was really neat and it felt good to read a new and fresh style.
Face it romance novel are always the same story and happy ending, but we want that. BUT we do not want to be bored or totally looked upon as if we can't think.
This one is a big let down. I am not into listing the scenes of the book you have to read it yourself. But I can't recommend this one. The other ones I will keep and enjoy rereading this one will go into the yardsale. Sorry.
Boring and honestly after a while it got on my nerves how much each character felt sorry for themselves... it drove me insane and crazy. Come on now.
Enough is enough.
Thanks for letting me voice my opinion.

...But Christie Ridgeway manages to reveal candidly what it is like to live in a small town, where one's reputation maps one's life. Though few people have Kitty's exact problem, that of being the latest desendant of the town madame, and working every day in the restored cat house, Ridgeway does strike a cord with anyone who knows what it is like to be known for the deeds of one's ancestors or relatives, and not for one's self. All Kitty wants to do is be seen for who she is, and to be understood apart from her family's reputation. When she and Dylan spent a night together years ago, she reached for a glimmer of respectability. Now he is back, and steaming mad.

The plot is very thin, and Dylan is practically a cookie cutter hero, but something in Kitty's situation grabs the reader and makes them like the book despite its obviously weak plot and carbon copy characters. Try this one. You might just like it.

It's a nice story, has lots of potential but it's so slow that I wasn't able to engage in the story....

Christie Ridgway just keeps getting better and better, and she absolutely sparkles in FIRST COMES LOVE. Funny, witty dialogue mixed with engaging, likeable characters, mixed with a fun, fast-paced story adds up to a wonderful read. Her characters and stories always leave me with a happy feeling inside, but this time, she created a whole community that's kept me feeling warm and fuzzy. I can't wait to go back and read it again!

I've read Christie Ridgway's books "Wish You Were Here" and "The Perfect Kiss" and she's hit it again on this one! I loved Kitty's "mini-van" soul and it was refreshing to find a hero who didn't think he was a hero in Dylan.