Customer Reviews

McKettricks of Texas: Austin (Hqn)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the 3rd in the Texas McKettricks series. Austin is the youngest brother and his past with the youngest Remington, Paige, is finally catching up with him. Now that his brothers are marrying her sisters, they have to find a way to get along. The only problem is they both seem to be way too attracted to the other, but they know acting on it will be a problem since they will have to be around each other for holidays and other family get-together for the next fifty years.

The other two books have been building up to this one. Paige and Austin have been mentioned repeatedly and it is obvious that they have some kind of history together. I liked the previous two books, but I've really been looking forward to this one. I was concerned that I might be disappointed, but gratefully, I was not. Of the three brothers, I loved Austin the most. Plus, Paige was the smartest of the three. Maybe it is because I am a youngest child like both of them, but both of their characters were more easily liked than any of the others.

The story moved along at a good pace and I hated to put the book down when it was time for bed. The romance was a good build up and the story seemed plausible. I liked that the rustling storyline continued in this book, but it wasn't left hanging in the other books, so even had I not read this book, I would not have felt like I missed something.

This was a good ending for the three brothers, but I would love to read more about Blue River. There is so much more to the town and it would be nice to get to know more of the residents--especially Chief Brent Brogan (aka Denzel).

I recommend reading the first two books about Tate and Garrett before reading this one because it will enhance the story. I think the reader would still get into the story, but too many things are carried over from the previous two books.

*I received this book from the publisher via netgalley to review*

A great book to sit down, relax and have a lot of fun.

Rodeo star Austin McKettrick is only 28 but years of bull-riding took its toll on his body. A hurt back makes him stay with his two brothers at their ranch. It's the best place to get back on his feet but at the ranch he also has to deal with Paige Remington again.
Ten years ago Paige and Austin were a couple and deeply in love. But he was afraid of settling down and broke her heart to get his freedom back. In the present her sisters are marrying Austin's brothers and he needs her help to get back on his feet. Both can't deny that there is still a lot between them but Paige is wary of trusting in Austin again.
When dangerous and mysterious incidents happen at the McKettrick ranch and Austin is badly hurt, the relationship between them changes. Paige can't hold back anymore even though she doesn't know whether she can get over the past and her broken heart.

"McKettricks of Texas: Austin" (book 13 in the McKettricks series, but works great as a stand-alone) is the first book by Linda Lael Miller that I read but it definitely won't be the last one.
The book is funny, sexy, lovely and just great to read. The story never gets boring and all of the main characters are likeable and interesting.
Paige is a great heroine. She's a strong and very caring person. She loved Austin with all her heart and when he betrayed her she was devastated. That's why it's easy to understand that she has a hard time to trust him again.
Austin is also an awesome character and I liked him a lot. He is sexy, stubborn and very charming. He has grown up a lot in the years since he broke up with Paige. He knows that what he did was wrong and that's why I hoped that he and Paige would get a second chance (of course they did).
The mystery part of the book was interesting, not absurd or overly dramatic and not too dark. I also want to mention that I love the cover, a sexy cowboy is always a good choice!

This is the third book in a series on the McKettricks of Texas. I read the first two books as well, along with many other Linda Lael Miller books in the past. For the most part, her books are an enjoyable read, with believable characters. I don't mind that the plots are generally predictable. However, I expect a NYT bestselling author to be able to afford a decent editor. There are many places in this series where numbers of years just do not add up for several of the characters in different places in the book. For example, the vet who was supposed to be about the same age as Austin's parents, was supposed to have taken care of Austin's father when he was hurt at age 12, while he was on a vet call. Elsewhere, one villain was supposed to have declared bankruptcy 15 years earlier, and this was supposed to be after Austin's parents died, which earlier they said had been 10 years before, when Austin was 18 (and he is now 28). In one book, Paige broke up with Austin and made him really mad and broken hearted, in order to go to nursing school. In this book, the story has changed, and Austin cheated on Paige to force a break up because they were too serious. Other mistakes abound, but one of the most grating to me is the fact that all of the pick-up trucks in the series (and in fact in all of her books) are called RIGS. Now perhaps in Montana they are, but I have lived in Texas all of my life, and live in the region this book takes place. I know people who ranch and people who do rodeo, and I live in a rural area, but I have never once heard a Texan call a pick-up a RIG. A semi-truck and trailer might be called a rig, and a (portable) oil well drilling rig is called a rig, but not a pick-up. We call them trucks. And no real cowboys or cowgirls that I know dismount a horse by swinging their legs over the horses heads, nor do they go riding at night.

I know the main emphasis here is on the romance, so I will not complain (much) that the characters want to make love right after getting shot or breaking an ankle, but it also seems to me that if you are going to write about Texas, and discuss oil in particular, you could at least get a petroleum geologist or petroleum geophysicist to read the text, and make sure it makes sense! The errors here had me alternate between eye-rolling and laughter. You should not, in my opinion, romanticize the oil business, to the extent that it is pure fantasy. The best books have believable characters and rest of the story is also believable.

The author says for example, that "nobody really knew how far the deposit extended, or in what directions. It was entirely possible that the house itself sat on top of a hundred dead dinosaurs, transformed into oil over millions of years..." I suppose most hair-raising is that the author propagates nonsense that oil is coming from dead dinosaurs. Sorry, but the source rock is generally shale, composed largely of decayed plants, algae, and bacteria. Oil does NOT come from dead dinosaurs. Oil fields are generally found by oil companies, with MAPS made from well logs and seismic data. As more data comes in, maps are modified and refined, but every effort is made to make sure the oil company knows as exactly as possible where the productive zones are. It is also the oil company who pays to have the wells drilled, logged, pumped, and plugged, not the rancher, who gets a royalty as the landowner. Wells are very expensive to drill, and are often dry (no oil or gas) so every effort is made to map the area and know exactly what might be in the subsurface before a well is drilled. The author also seems to think that oil wells are drilled by ranchers with derricks that stay in place once the well is drilled (sorry but this has not been the case for at least 70 years). Wells are drilled with a portable drilling rig, that is moved onto the location, and moved off once the well is complete.

The wells on the Silver Spur were supposed to be capped, but with oil left in the ground. Again, you do not just stick a metal cap that can be removed with a crowbar on top of a column of flowing oil....the well is plugged and abandoned, with cement sealing off the oil zone, and even water producing zones are plugged, so that it does not continue to flow and possibly contaminate the water aquifers above. This is even done if there is a possibility that the well will be re-entered at a later date and more oil is produced. Most oil will not flow at all on it's own, it has to be pumped out of the rock to get to the surface. Nor would anyone be able to toss a match in a well such as this and cause a huge fire, setting off more well fires underground (oil is not in underground pools, like a lake, it is in the pore spaces of rocks, that must be connected to flow at all). But the one redeeming grace is that the author has a team of firefighting experts come in to put out the oil well fires, not the local firefighers.

With just a little more effort, this book could have been factually correct, which would have only increased the enjoyment of it. I like historical romances for example, because there is a lack of violence in most of them, and I learn something. But to propagate nonsense as science, assuming women are ignorant of such things, is just insulting!

This book had some good moments such as the two main characters, Austin and his ex-girlfriend Paige, have verbal sparring once they set eyes on each other again. They also had a decent love scene but otherwise it is just an okay romance that bracketed the other family members upcoming wedding and how their lives juggled around each other on Silver Spur Ranch. Throw in a ranch hand that is doing shady sabotage to try to overtake oil fields and get revenge on the family with weak red herrings and they almost get in the way of the romantic leads. There are better writers out there who focus on the love story and remember that is what the fans read a romance novel for to begin with.

The romantic tension between the hero and heroine is there from the get go--they have a past. Not only that but his two brothers have married her two sisters. In addition both main characters are crazy accident prone, I don't know how they managed to make it through their steamy scenes without a trip to the ER, both of them were in casts or on bed rest at various times through out the whole story.

It was pretty silly and I had a really hard time believing what was going on.

I have tried to enjoy Ms. Millers last few books but find them to be rather silly as if written for teens or tweens. I miss her excellent "Mojo" and "Clair Westbrook" books. These last few contemporary westerns seem rushed and mass produced for quick release. How many times can an adult, intelligent? woman bite her lip or turn pink in one story? I would be willing to pay hardback prices if Ms. Miller would return to the quality of earlier work. It took several tries to even finish this book.

I must say that I would have to agree with the other two star reviews. I was so excited and looking forward to reading the last book in this series only to be let down. I have read many books from Ms. Miller and I love her western romance books. However, this last series seemed rushed. I felt the same about all three books....how many times can we read about them feeding the dogs, and driving out of the garage? The plot was never really developed. Paige was hurt by Austin way back when they were teenagers when he cheated on her even though they were both in love. Now, 10 years later and the engagement of Paige's sisters to Austins brothers brings them back together. I felt that for all the hurt Austin caused her she sure was fast at forgiving him. Don't get me wrong...theres a reason why I love western romances...what with tall, lean cowboys, grins that make your knees buckle....but come on! Even a little bit of a backbone would have been nice.

The ending killed me! This was the last book of the series and I felt like it just left me hanging. I wanted the ending developed more. I wanted more....way more, especially on that last page.

I was tempted to give this book a higher rating, but if I did it would only be because I love LLM books and all the McKettricks. I hope we get another series where the story actually develops and the heroines make their alpha males suffer a bit before they give in.

I have sooooo many books to read, I really don't need any more right now. But now that I've read about Austin, I have to read about his brothers, Tate and Garrett. This book is part of a series, but you definitely don't need to read the others for it to make sense. You'll just WANT to when you finish this one. Actually, it is meant to be the last one of the brothers series, and I'd recommend you read Tate first, then Garrett.

I'm from Wisconsin, but who doesn't love a cowboy? Especially a gentle and sensitive, yet strong and tough one like Austin. Back in the 1980's I got hooked on Janet Daily's Calder series, and this book reminded me so much of those. The book has lots of romance and a little mystery going on on the side.

The idea of three brothers falling in love with three sisters is a little far-fetched, but I can suspend my disbelief for a romance novel. I recommend this book for any woman who loves romance and/or cowboys. So that's pretty much every woman, right?

This is the third book in a series where three brothers are marrying three sisters, and it is acting as more of a coda than a stand-alone book. The conclusion is far too foregone -- not that romances ever work on any suspense concerning whether or not the leads will get together (after all, it's one of the staples of the genre that they always will), but this is just a bit much. There's too much pressure on the characters of Austin and Paige -- near the beginning of the book, one of Paige's sisters even gleefully tells her that if she marries Austin, they can all have a triple wedding. It's just too much, particularly since the set-up is that Paige and Austin were wildly in love as teenagers, but then Austin cheated on her. Well, unfortunately Paige seems to be the only one to periodically remember that. Even if she'd gotten over that (which it's kind of questionable, since the set-up also seems to indicate that she's essentially spent all of the intervening time without any other relationships), it just seems odd that both her sisters and Austin's brothers would be shoving them together so often.

The back of the book is also a bit misleading. It seems to imply that Austin is in a terrible accident and Paige is hired to nurse him back to health. Well, Austin has a herniated disc, which while painful and potentially needing surgery, allows him to stroll around and pretty much fend for himself the entire book with the exception of a few backaches, and Paige is hired by his brothers mainly to a) babysit, and b) have yet one more excuse to throw them together. It's not even a terribly good excuse.

I ended up putting the book down halfway through, and having no urge to pick it up again. Paige and Austin are both nice enough characters, but I never got the impression that they were very in love with each other. It mainly felt like the circumstance of all their siblings getting married pushed them together, and the end of Austin's career made him decide to settle down. Nothing was really at stake in this book, and it was just wrapping up the loose siblings in this series.

I had read the two previous books Mckettricks of Texas: Garrett and TateMcKettricks of Texas: TateMcKettricks of Texas: Garrett (Hqn)I knew I wanted to complete the set. The trilogy delivered a nice satisfaction. I would have liked to see the "cowboy" theme more developed. I read in hopes of learning more about something new to me. Overall it was an okay experience.