Review: First Kisses: Inspy Kisses Collection #1 by various authors (Goodnight, Tronstad, Clopton, Daley, Tang, Williams)

As soon as I saw who was on the roster for First Kisses: Inspy Kisses Collection #1 published by Aspendawn, the book sailed to the top of my reading list:  Linda Goodnight, Janet Tronstad, Debra Clopton, Margaret Daley, Camy Tang, and Lacy Williams.  All of these authors have already been published with Harlequin's Love Inspired line.  Debra Clopton and Margaret Daley are usually a guarantee to me of a great read.

The book is a collection of six novellas/short stories which are tied together by first kisses, which occur quite early for some, and for others, at the end of the story.

1) The Rambler's Bride by Linda Goodnight.
This is a western historical set in the 1800's.  Jericho North has come to see Esther North, his brother's widow, a woman who Jericho considers to be a harlot because Silas, his brother, met her at the local saloon.  Theodore Perkins, Esther's cousin-in-law, and mayor of the nearest town wants Esther to sell the farm to him supposedly so that he can magnanimously offer her a better price than what the coming railroad would give to her.  However, neither Esther nor Theodore know that Jericho is the actual owner since Silas willed the farm to Jericho.  

Jericho is determined to kick Esther off his land, but he discovers quite quickly that he's attracted to his brother's widow, and that she isn't what he thought she was.  He also finds out that there was a lot that had happened to Silas that his brother had not informed Jericho about. 

This story was six chapters long, but I thought that it was quite a complete story.  There are a number of revelations that are revealed to the reader as Jericho discovers them.  By the end I was rooting for the protagonists. This is the first historical that I've read by Linda Goodnight; most of her work that I've read before has been contemporary romances.  I give this a thumbs up!

2) Lovebirds at the Heartbreak Cafe by Janet Tronstad.
If you love Ms. Tronstad's Dry Creek series, we revisit a nearby town, Webster's Crossing, in 1958.  Buddy Hamilton is an ex-serviceman who is working as a flatbed trucker.  He often stops by the Heartbreak Cafe for a meal when he passes through town. There, he meets Penny Rose, a widow with six children to care for.  Penny is desperate to find a job to support her family.  She had been renting some farmland nearby but was unable to continue to work the land due to a lack of finances. She left with her family to find work elsewhere, but returned to Webster's Crossing after a fruitless search for a job.  Buddy and other kind souls at Webster's Crossing band together to help the family out.  As Buddy spends more time with Penny and the children, he discovers how a young girl like Penny ended up with six children to support.  He plots to find a way to restore to Penny the life that she had sacrificed in order to care for her family, not realizing that he might be the prince that she and children are looking for.

I'm not really a big fan of the Dry Creek Series.  I've read a few books from the series in the past, but never really got into them as an avid follower.  I did enjoy this novella, though.  I found myself laughing upon reading the moment when Buddy first laid eyes on the children piled in Penny's car after hearing that she was a widow.  This one is worth a read.

3) Her Mule Hollow Cowboy by Debra Clopton.
This is a contemporary story set in Mule Hollow, my favourite fictional Texan town. The couple involved are Cliff Masterson and Maddie Rose (no relation to Penny Rose from the Dry Creek story above, unless this was a deliberate collaboration that Janet Tronstad and Debra Clopton made like their previously released Small Town Brides which is composed of two novellas about two female cousins who met their matches in Dry Creek and Mule Hollow respectively).  Cliff is a bull rider who is looking to retire from the circuit.  He wants to buy his own ranch so that he can raise rodeo stock.  Maddie co-owns a ranch with four other men, one of whom is Cliff's twin brother, Rafe.  This connection results in Maddie's and Cliff's initial meeting as he rescues her from being stomped on by an ornery bull.

The sparks fly between Maddie and Cliff, but Maddie is afraid of getting close to Cliff because of her past.  She is also fiercely independent, acting in this way to overcome her feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.  Cliff has some issues to deal with too, having come to realize that his bull riding career may have been his own way of dealing with his own past, but he knows a good thing when he sees it, and that is a future with Maddie. Maddie shares things that she has never shared before about her past with Cliff and is falling in love with him.

Although Cliff is looking for property so that he can retire bull riding, his sponsors rope him back into the circuit.  Maddie is fearful that he will abandon her.  Will this couple make it?

I think that this story is sigh worthy, but I'm biased; I love Mule Hollow and its characters.  App, Stanley, Sam, Hailey Bell Sutton, and of course, the Mule Hollow Matchmaking Posse, composed of Esther Mae, Norma Sue, and Adela, show up in the novella.  And boy!  The ladies of the Posse were *bad* this time round!  However, how Cliff responded was very sweet.  In fact, I liked how he conducted himself throughout the whole story.  Yes, Maddie, he's a keeper!

And Ms. Clopton...if you ever read this, I would love, love, love to read about Rafe's story.  There's enough of a hint that he has had some disappointment in love, and I would love for that cowboy to have his own happy ending. In fact, I would also love to read Ty's, Chase's, and Dalton's stories too.

4) Deadly Hunt by Margaret Daley.
Tess Miller, a bodyguard who specializes in protecting children, is on vacation at her uncle's isolated cabin in the Arizona mountains.  She is trying to unwind from her last assignment when an injured man, without any identification, shows up at the cabin, bleeding from a gunshot wound. Shane Burkhart claims to be the owner of a high tech company, but has no idea why he had been shot; was it an accidental shooting by a hunter or is there someone trying to kill him?  Will Shane survive his injuries?  Is he really who he says he is?  If the shooting was not accidental, who is trying to kill him, and why?  What will Tess do about the attraction that she feels towards this stranger who is injured in her uncle's cabin?

I thought that this suspense story was quite well written.  For the most part, the reader discovers details about who Shane is and the threat against his life as Tess learns about them.  Unlike some stories, I had no idea who the bad guys were until they were revealed.  For a while there, I was even uncertain about the male protagonist.  The story unfolded well, and as I mentioned before, I usually find that Margaret Daley delivers a satisfying read.

5) Necessary Proof by Camy Tang.
Alex Villa, a police informant, and Jane Lawton, an IT/software specialist, are on the run from a Filipino gang that wants to recover the laptop that Alex had swiped after tailing a gang member to one of their drug labs.  Alex had previously given information to the police about another drug lab belonging to the gang which led to an officer being ambushed and killed by gang members when the police tried to raid it.  Alex needs Jane's expertise to retrieve any data that could prove his innocence and show that the gang is trying to frame him.    
   
The pair barely keep one step ahead of their pursuers and are chased all over Sonoma.  However, being on the lam forces Jane to face issues that have been plaguing her for the past year in which she has grown to be distrustful of men after being wounded and betrayed by most of the males in her life.  All of this has also resulted in an estranged relationship with God.  Alex, who had been previously interested in Jane, finds himself increasingly attracted to her again, but cannot act on this attraction until he can resolve the dangerous situation that he has brought upon Jane and himself.

This story was a bit more frantic than the previous one, because the pursuit takes place for most of the story.  I'm not a technologically inclined person, but the descriptions of what Jane needed to do with the computer in order to help Alex were good enough for me to follow and not get lost. Finally, this was the story in this collection that I thought had the most incorporation of faith in God into the storyline.  I enjoyed reading it.

6) Kissed by a Cowboy by Lacy Williams.
At the time of this blog entry, this particular short story is also available at Smashwords.  In fact, that is where I first read this before I received a copy of First Kisses.

Maddox Michaels was the man who Haley Carston had hoped would fall in love with her and want to marry before Maddox's sister and Haley's best friend, Katie, died. Then, he was full of confidence about his life and future, with the possibility of being noticed by professional scouts for the NFL.  Now, Maddox is a different man; he is barely keeping his family together, having assumed the responsibility for caring for his orphaned niece, Olivia, and for a younger brother, Justin, who was injured in a bull riding accident. He has long shouldered the position of being the man of the family as both his parents have passed on.  Maddox is also trying to keep the family farm financially afloat, traveling for a few days at a time doing additional work to earn extra income.    

Haley and Maddox are reunited when Haley returns to Redbud Trails to care for her Aunt Matilda who is dying of cancer.  Haley runs into Olivia, a precocious 11 year old who wants to start up a gourmet ice cream business but requires start up money that Maddox can barely spare.  When Haley offers to help fund Olivia's business because she is determined to give her best friend's daughter a chance to realize her dreams, Maddox reluctantly agrees to Haley's scheme. 

The more time Maddox spends with Haley, he realizes that he's falling for her, but he wrestles with fears that he has nothing to offer her when his own life is a mess.  Meanwhile, Haley is also falling for Maddox but can't figure out how to overcome his reservations about starting a relationship and his increasingly distant attitude. 

I liked this story.  Out of all the stories in this collection, I found this one to be the most plausible, believable, and possible that could happen in real life.  It is one that I could relate to also because it is set in a contemporary time and didn't require me to imagine being in another era or for me to imagine being involved in a situation where my life would be endangered through espionage or criminal activity.  The only quibble that I have is that I wouldn't classify this story as a Christian inspirational; I'd probably group it under the "sweet" and "clean" categories.  Even though there is mention about church and people from church, I didn't see much mention about God or about drawing strength from a relationship with Him.

However, as I mentioned before, I enjoyed this story.  This is the first work that I've read by Lacy Williams.  I'd be interested in reading more of her work in the future.

In short:
This is a nice collection of short stories that includes the historical, suspense, and contemporary genres.  Each story is a fairly light read.  I believe that this is a great sampler for the authors included in this book if one hasn't read any of their work before.

Disclaimer:  I was provided with a free e-copy of First Kisses from Net Galley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine. 

Hope Magazine

I just picked up a copy of Hope Magazine yesterday.  It is published by the Gideons International in Canada.  I'm wondering if it's just a one off, because I can't find any date other than the copyright date for the Biblical Scriptures that appear in the magazine.  I also can't find any information about how often the magazine is published in a year.  In any case, I love this magazine.  It contains portions of some of the Psalms and the entirety of the Gospel of John using the New Living Translation (NLT).  I love the photographs that have been used along with some of the verses.  I'm sorely tempted to cut the pages out of the magazine and mount them as posters upon the walls of my home.