3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
warm inspirational contemporary romance, December 31, 2007
This review is from: Taming Rafe (Noble Legacy Series #2) (Paperback)
Eight seconds is all it took to destroy the life of Rafe Noble, world champion bull rider. He was riding Pee Wee when he was tossed by the inappropriately named bull. Instead of tumbling to the ground he got caught on the horns. His best friend Manuel Rodriguez saved Rafe's life, but lost his own leaving behind a wife and young son.
Feeling guilt and unable to ride, Rafe is in New York to raise money for the Breckenridge Foundation whose president Katherine Breckenridge needs money to fund Mercy Doctors in Mexico. A bit drunk Rafe crashes into the hotel hosting the gala destroying the event and himself. He runs back to his family ranch in Montana to heal and escape the media, but it is Katherine's accusation that rips his gut. She decides to visit him on his family ranch to get him to help her raise money for her cause. As they fall in love, secrets involving her late bull riding daddy, her deceased sophisticated fundraising mom, and her mysterious missing Aunt surface.
The sequel to RECLAIMING NICK is a warm inspirational Noble Legacy contemporary romance. The lead couple is a wonderful pairing and the "romance" between an older couple adds depth to the strong story line, but it is little Carlos, in spite of a tiny appearance, who haunts the heroine and the reader. The return of the other two Noble siblings makes life on the ranch seem right for the audience. Although a late suspense involving embezzlement provide unnecessary suspense, readers will appreciate Susan May Warren's fine tale while considering ask not what God can do for you; ask what you can do for God.
Harriet Klausner
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
And I don't even like romance!, July 23, 2010
This review is from: Taming Rafe (Noble Legacy Series #2) (Paperback)
Kat's late mother's charity foundation is in financial trouble. She needs this fundraiser to succeed if she hopes to rescue the foundation and live up to her mother's legacy. She doesn't expect a pickup truck to crash through the hotel lobby. Rafe didn't expect to crash it, either. Now he's wrecked not only his truck and Kat's fundraiser, but also his knee and possibly his career as a professional bull rider. Rafe's solution is to retreat--to his family's ranch and his cocoon of guilt and grief over a friend's death. Kat's solution is to chase him--all the way to the ranch, demanding he help her raise the money she needs and salvage at least some of the things he's ruined lately. Neither of them is prepared to re-examine their views of God, to release their true selves under a wide Montana sky, or to fall in love.
Generally speaking, the romance genre bores me. "Will they ever see past their differences?" Sure they will. "Will her beauty inside and out be enough to heal his broken heart?" Naturally. "Will his deep, dark, dangerous past tear them apart forever?" Of course not. "Will they ever be able to forgive each other?" Well, duh. Fortunately, this book is not driven by cliched back-cover questions. It's driven by two people who I quickly grew to care about: Kat, spirited and tenacious but constantly questioning her worth; and Rafe, swaggering on the outside but trembling on the inside. It also holds quite a bit more setting and plot than the average romance novel. Readers are tossed into the rough-and-tumble world of professional bull riding, the tough and spacious world of cattle ranching. A skillful inter-weaving of Noble family backstory, a subplot love story between two endearing secondary characters, a slowly rising action plot involving money missing from Kat's foundation and an ever-more-ruthless antagonist who will do anything for that money--I can't believe Ms. Warren crammed all this into less than 400 pages. Yet she did it, all without compromising the focus on Rafe and Kat. Every element manages to twine its way back to them.
How could this book have earned five stars? Mainly, some of the introspection should have been weeded out. I got a little tired of reading whole pages of character contemplation. The romantic angst never plummeted into melodrama, especially not to the point that I wanted to shut the book, but the characters' feelings would have been more powerful if the author had relied more on their actions just to show us, and less on their conflicted inner monologues spelling everything out. Also, twice while reading this book, I experienced a moment of pure frustration at this author for cheating me out of a scene I really wanted to read. First, the truck accident. This is Kat and Rafe's meeting scene! And it isn't shown! Rafe realizes he can't stop the truck; the next thing we know, Kat is reflecting on the crash. I wanted this entire scenario delivered to me in real time. What did they say to each other when he fell out of the truck with a broken knee and she ran up to the truck irate over her broken fundraiser? We'll never know. The other scene I wanted is nearly at the end of the book; suffice it to say that it is a climactic moment for Rafe, and like the meeting of the protagonists, a scene this important should not be merely reflected on later.
On the whole, this book is an endearing, romantic delight. Ms. Warren doesn't over-write but doesn't just toss words haphazardly onto the page, either; and she knows how to create a vulnerable but tough leading man. I love Rafe; I love the Silver Buckle Ranch; I love knowing this series has two more books in which I can spend some more time in the big, glorious, modern West and better get to know the Noble family.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard to put down!, January 28, 2010
This review is from: Taming Rafe (Noble Legacy Series #2) (Paperback)
The book engaged me from the beginning towards the end. I could hardly stay away from this book. I did not reload the dishwasher and had this guilty look when my husband returned home. I had a day off and was planning to do many things but just a few things got accomplished. I could not stop reading it and wanted to know how it would end. The book is clean but with so much tension between the hero and heroine that you are at heart reading it. The book had a bit of suspense in it.
I loved the hero as a bull rider with a sensitive touch.
I gave four stars because it is not my favorite style of writing, and the book was a bit contrived towards the end. Also, the book left my mind the same way as first one.
It is like you had a great dinner but the next day you do not remember what you have had.
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