A Cowboy for Christmas: A Jubilee, Texas Novel by Lori Wilde Edition: Mass Market Paperback Price: $7.99
Less Than I Hoped For, November 1, 2012 This review is from: A Cowboy for Christmas: A Jubilee, Texas Novel (Mass Market Paperback) I'm most likely going to be one of the few that thought that this was a less than stellar novel. Lissette Moncrief's husband had been killed in action and has left all his money to a half-brother instead of to his wife and child. Lissette is a baker and could have used that money to help her 2 year old son and grew her company that supplies wedding cake and other Texas goodies. By accident, (literally) Rafferty and LIssette meet up in a grocery store parking lot when she hit his truck. Rafferty is in town to deliver something and you are left for a little while just sort of knowing that it is Lissette who is going to be the beneficiary of his delivery. Now this is where my dissatisfaction with this novel comes in to play...Lissette has just been told her child is going to need al sorts of special care but because of her `pride' she is not going to take any of the money that really should have belonged to her. Of course, sparks fly between Rafferty and Lissette and this is only 6 months after her husband's death. Granted, they were not getting along very well even when he was state side and she had an idea that he was getting a little on the side. Still, only 6 months later? Oh yes Rafferty is a cowboy so perhaps that explains the reason of why the sparks are flying so soon and so thickly. Lissette is prideful and very stubborn and Rafferty is more mild mannered and somewhat of a push over and while this may work in some stories, it failed to work for me in this one. Now there is an interesting secondary story going on with Lissette's mother-in-law who is holding on to a deep, dark secret that she is sure when once learned everyone will hate her for. There is so much inner-dialoguing going on that there doesn't seem to be anytime for real character interaction to take place. A lot of angst abounds in this novel also and can get a little tedious at times.. Normally I'm a fan of an author who gives us a character that has a physical impairment, but in this novel the female protagonist, Lissette Moncrief's son is losing his hearing. Both his mother and late father had been carrying a rare gene that when combined leaves your child with profound and irreversible hearing loss. The author shocked me by treating this as if it were the end of the world. It is something a 2 year old will easily live with; it's not an inoperable cancer or worse. This was a good read but not a wonderful read, even though we do get our Happily Ever After in the end.