Amelia SmartsCritiques

Amelia Smarts and Jane Henry, queens of cowboy spanking stories, have teamed up to bring us two very, very hot cowboy Daddies. Each author writes her own story and the stories are interconnected. The women are sisters and the guys are old friends.

Clay is a rancher. He gets a call from Shane, his best friend and foreman, to tell him that one of his horses has been stolen. This horse just happens to be his favorite horse, Glaze. When Clay tracks down Glaze, he finds Abby, a young woman who is living in an abandoned bunkhouse. She needed Glaze so she could get back and forth to her job so that she can earn money to send to her sister for her education. Clay takes an interest in Abby and wants to be her Daddy so that he can take care of her forever.

Shane finds Daisy, Abby's little sister, having had more than one drink on Abby and Clay's big day. Generally, that wouldn't be too much of a problem, but Daisy is under age. He gets her straightened out and off so that she can perform. But when she gets into trouble and tries to fix it herself, she ends up making everything even worse. Luckily, Shane is there to help her out and be her Daddy.

These are great stories. Jane and Amelia have come up with a pair of likable couples. Clay and Shane are strong, likable, and caring guys. Abby and Daisy are also strong women who aren't afraid of being who they are. They aren't afraid of loving their men, even when it's hard for them to accept help. Great pair of sweet HEAs.

I was given an ARC of this book and this is my honest and voluntary review.

Elsie wants vengeance for her father. Her neighbors and rivals, the Xanders, drove her father to his death and then had the guts to show up at his funeral. Eighteen year old Elsie can't be having that, so she gets together with her ranch hands and concocts a plan to get back at the Xanders and make her ranch more profitable at the same time. After a nearly a year, her ranch hands are trying to get her to stop, and the sheriff is suspicious.

Wyatt is a cowboy who has hurt his arm and gotten fired from his job, and shafted by his old boss. He decides that he wants to change his profession and be a lawman. When he rides into Virgina City, he approaches the sheriff and asks for a job. The sheriff tells him to go to Elsie's ranch and try to pin down what's going on.

Elsie has decided that she needs a strong husband to help her, so she has followed in her friends' footsteps and written an ad for a mail order groom. Will that groom be the strong man she is looking for or is what she wants right under her nose?

I love the twist on mail order bride stories with this series. I think it's an excellent way to take control of your own destiny and find what you are looking for if what you want isn't right there.

Elsie is one tough cookie and she works as hard as her ranch hands on making her ranch successful. However, that doesn't mean she doesn't have a hear too, and the way that she cares for Wyatt shows her generous side. Wyatt is the kind of hero pretty much every young woman dreams of at some point in her life.

I really enjoyed this story, as I have everything else that Amelia Smarts has written.

I got an ARC and you got my honest and voluntary review.

If you like romances with a healthy dose of cowboys, serious love, and some spanking, then you need to read Amelia Smarts. That is her specialty and each of her books is special.

As a teenager, Wade got caught stealing bread from a mercantile. The owner dragged him down to the sheriff, who ended up taking Wade home and raising him as his own child, along with his biological child as well as other children that he has adopted.

Sadie, the oldest child until Wade gets there, is the sheriff's biological daughter. She has taken over all the duties that a mother would, running the house, taking care of the other children, cooking meals, so on and so forth. When Wade came in, he upset Sadie's natural order, and she didn't like him. That means she went out of her way to make him as miserable happens.

Eventually, Wade sneaks away in the middle of the night and goes out to make his way in the world and Sadie is left with several younger children that she has to continue to raise.

This is an enemies-to-lovers story. It takes a lot to get there, but it's OK. I loved the journey. The story doesn't always have to be about the ending, but about the journey instead. The book shows a whole lot of growth for all the characters and lets us fall in love with more than just the main characters. Amelia did a great job of pulling me in and leaving me happy.

Amelia Smarts does Westerns and daddies so well. It doesn't matter if it's modern or back in the 1800s, her Western Daddies are always a joy and delight to read.

Jackson is a rancher and Lydia has always been on his ranch, and now she's running a little wild, so he has to do something about her.

I think Jackson and Lydia work really well together. The fact that they had known each other for all of Lydia's life kind of made it both easier and harder, I think. They already knew all about each other, and they were more comfortable with each other. But then there could also be the fact that he remembers her as a little kid, but it doesn't seem to cause problems, so it works. Lydia is really smart and I think that she's also going to be really useful to Jackson and end up making everything better. Such a good story.

I can't wait for the next Amelia Smarts book.

Historical, spanking, cowboy romance? Yes please, especially if it's one that Amelia Smarts wrote. She has quite a way with words and putting me back in that time period and in the heroine's place.

I like Heath a lot. He's a very good man. He's caring, patient, and just honest. He's really good for Willow. Willow's not a bad person, she's just had to depend on herself way too much, and that's really hard for her, and she likes to go out with her friends and drink and play cards and raise a little heck.

I think that when the two of them get together, it's pretty sweet, but it's not cloyingly sweet. It's just really perfect.

I like Victoria, most of the time. She comes off as a terrible person sometimes, but she really isn't. She's a scared person, and that's how her fear manifests. I think that she needs to let people in and trust other people.

I like Frank, again, most of the time. He has a huge heart, and wants to take care of everyone and help everyone feel better. There are times that I got really mad at him, because he made some choices.

Callie Broderick is an orphan who is ready for a big change in her life. She’s masterminded a plan to ride a stagecoach out west to California where her fiance Albert awaits her. She’s willing to be a mail-order bride to get away from her poor life and past. However, as she comes to know the coachman, Jude Johnson, she starts questioning her choice to marry this unknown Albert.

I joined this blog tour on a whim because I do like a good western from time to time. Plus there’s spanking, which I always find both amusing and potentially erotic. This book was fun though there’s not much depth to it. Callie feels like she’s 16, though the description puts her at 18. She’s got this rough past as an abused orphan and yet she seems to lack some street smarts. Her character could have used a bit more to it.

Then we have Jude Johnson. He’s an ex-soldier and an experience coachman. He provides a steady, and sometimes stern, hand for Callie to clasp on to…. when he’s not using it to smack her bottom. He’s a decent guy and he felt like twice Callie’s age. I wanted to know more about him and his past. He carries a confidence that is attractive.

The main premise of the book was good. Callie wants to leave her old life behind and this chance to be the wife of a man with a stable income in far off Sacramento seems like a dream come true. She’s exchanged letters with Albert over the past several months and he appears to be a decent person. I did wonder how Callie came to read and write so well and how she came about the paper, ink, and postage to exchange so many letters. It’s these little things that would have made this a really good story had they been included.

So let’s talk about those spankings, because that is honestly why some of us picked this book up. The first few spankings were chaste punishments for Callie doing something that she shouldn’t. Her relationship with Jude really does start off with this older man in charge punishing a young disobedient pup feel to it. But then things start to shift as they become friends. Plus Callie is afraid of the dark and needs comforting nightly in order to sleep. That puts them in an intimate if still chaste position on a regular basis.

Eventually, we get 1 sex scene. It’s over quickly and lacks in description. While the romance and anticipation leading up to it were sweet, the actual love scene needed more page time. A lot more page time. The ending for Jude and Callie was a nice one and I can see how the author may well build upon this. Perhaps there will be a sequel. After all, there’s plenty more than spankings for the two to explore.

I received a free copy of this book via The Audiobookworm.

The Narration: Gideon Welles can read to me any time he wants to. This is one of the sexiest voices I have heard in some time. He is excellent as Jude Johnson. He’s got just the right amount of gruffness to his voice. His female voice for Callie was decent. He also had distinct voices for the other characters in the story. I liked his regional accents as well.