Title: Red Dust Dreaming
Author: Eva Scott
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: April 1, 2015
Publisher: Escape Publishing
ASIN: B00TQIML36
In the battle of duty versus desire, only one can survive the hot Australian sunshine.
Elizabeth Langtree’s has her life in order—safe, organised, planned. Sure, she has her troubles, but they are nothing she can’t handle. Then everything is turned upside down when her family send her to Australia to collect her orphaned nephew.
It all seemed so simple in New York, but Australia is nothing like she expected, and she soon falls under the spell of the Outback—the station, the lifestyle, and the seriously sexy owner who has been caring for Luke since the death of his mother.
Elizabeth soon discovers that what seemed simple a world away is anything but, and her duty is at odds with the dictates of her heart. She must choose, knowing that a mistake will not only cost her everything, but destroy the future of a devastated little boy.
My rating:
Elizabeth's sister has left their dysfunctional family behind long ago, got married, got pregnant, got widowed, and moved to the Australian Outback. Now, word has come that she's dead, and Elizabeth's parents demand Elizabeth be the one to go to Australia and fetch their five-year-old grandson from the nefarious clutches of the rancher who's raised him and only wants the boy's money.
Yet when Elizabeth arrives, nothing is as her parents (and herself) imagined. Luke is a happy little boy, the rancher, Caden, is far from a money-grabbing monster, and Lizzie feels free for the first time in years. But a decision has to be made, putting many futures in jeopardy.
This one started off great, with a wonderful contrast between New York and the Outback, a cold family in name only, and one filled with love even without ties of blood.
Then it rather lost its way somewhere in the middle, and never regained the nice ground it had trodden at the beginning.
The story seemed a tad too long in some aspects (rediscovery of Lizzie's artistic streak, her inability to make a decision, her obscuring of truth, and her stubborn refusal to cut ties with her cage) and too short in others (the romance was rather far-fetched without much ground to be based on).
And while I liked the supporting cast (Caden, Luke, and Thelma), the heroine annoyed me beyond words in the second half of the story (read above). The "villain" was easily spotted, as was his motive, yet the idiotic heroine needed concrete proof smacked into her forehead to see reason.
The premise was good, so was the "backdrop" and characters, but sadly the execution was lacking.
3 stars, bitchslappable heroine/hero, contemporary, contemporary romance, cowboys/ranchers/western, Eva Scott
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