Capture Her Rancher Hero (Saddlers Prairie, #3) Edited By Ann Roth Physical Book
Saddlers Prairie
Category: Heart amp Home
Very good book, I really liked both Cody and Autumn, Cody is determined to be as good a foster father as he can be, but sometimes feels at a loss when dealing with the four boys, It doesn't help that they've been without a housekeeper/cook and his cooking skills are pretty nonexistent, When Autumn arrives to fill in, he isn't sure what to make of her, He's certainly attracted to her, but with four teenage boys in the house that can't go anywhere, He is impressed by the fact that even though she can't cook she is determined to learn and to do the best job she can while she's there, He is also surprised by how quickly she is able to relate to the boys, even though she makes some mistakes along the way, The more time he spends with her the more he likes her but isn't sure that she'd want to stay around, I liked the way that Cody was so willing to help her and the way he showed her that he had confidence in her abilities, Autumn had had one too many speeding tickets and was sent to the ranch to be the housekeeper, She is willing to do whatever is needed to do the job right, Her willingness to accept help goes a long way to helping her fit in on the ranch, She is very attracted to Cody but also very nervous about messing up on the job, Her first few days with the boys are pretty rough as she learns to deal with their trust issues and teenageness, Pretty soon they're doing well together as they learn that they have a lot in common with her, Because she has made some bad romantic decisions in the past she is wary of getting involved with Cody, She also has some real self esteem issues and thinks that he is way too good for her, I really liked the way that she is able to meet the emotional needs of the boys, There were some very emotional parts dealing with the boys that really made the book extra good, I liked this one a lot, The hero and heroine both have troubled pasts, both romantically and otherwise, The heroine has run back home after leaving a fiancé she just found out was already married, Now she's got a speeding ticket she can't pay and debts all over town, so the judge signs her up for "community service" working as housekeeper at a ranch that has taken in problem boys.
So what if she can't cook, The hero is trying to live up to his foster father's ideals, but the teens he's taken in have run off all the housekeepers, and this one is awfully young and cute.
It's a fairly common plot line, but Roth as usual handles it exceptionally well and makes it her own, A great read. Autumn soaked up the praise, Her heart began to open, but she quickly forced it shut, She was past naively giving her heart when a man told her what she wanted to hear,
This book had a lot of problems,
QUICK SUMMARY
Autumn quit her job with no notice and left town with a man, Teddy, He promised he loved her and would marry her, She found out he had a wife, She comes back. She's brought to court on multiple tickets, The judge assigns her community service for sixty days working as a housekeeper in Cody's 'boys' home, ' This is a lastchance house for teenaged boys who are criminals to avoid prison,
THE PROBLEMS AND ANALYSIS
There are so many problems here I'm unsure where to begin,
. First of all, Cody seems like a huge creeper, He's hitting on a woman who is courtmandated to serve under him and live in his house, This is really disgusting and unethical, When he gets erections around her all the time, sleazes on her all the time as a reader I am getting very sickened, She's courtmandated to be there and live there, there's no escape for her,
When he leers at her, she questions herself, She thinks it's her fault for wearing shorts, or whatever, And he disgustingly asks her what she was doing in town on her days off, and if she has a boyfriend, None of these things are any of his fucking business, He was making me really skeeved out,
. Autumn seems a lot younger than she is, The author is telling me Autumn is, She acts more like a teenager, She's very young and immature, This only makes what Cody is doing more predatory,
Another thing that is hugely problematic is that Autumn has very low selfesteem, She's convinced she's stupid and worthless and no decent man could be interested in her, This makes me sick and makes what Cody is doing aggressively going after her even more disgusting,
Well, she wasn't the smartest person around,
Feelings Autumn thought she'd buried long ago overwhelmed her that she wasn't as smart as other people, and that maybe, as with everything else in life, she would fail at this, too.
She was no longer the gullible, lovestarved woman she'd once been, She was strong and independent, . .
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes but his attention was fully on the cookbook, Not on her.
Of course it was, Cody Naylor had a college degree, buckets of money and a successful ranch, He wasn't interested in her,
He thought she was smart Warmth flooded through her, and she was sure she must be glowing,
Until she realized that Cody knew nothing about her intelligence or lack thereof, He was simply being nice, Or maybe she was better at hiding her limited brain power than she thought,
That good, decent Cody Naylor desired her was a new and heady experience, But Autumn knew she wasn't smart enough or pretty enough to hold him for long, She barely had her high school diploma she could never be enough,
I don't know how you 'barely' have your high school diploma I mean you either have it or you don't, There's not really a gradient there,
Here's an example of her conversation with a good friend:
"Did you and Shawn have a fight" Autumn asked,
She gave a solemn nod, "He wants to move in together, but I won't without a ring, "
"Good for you," Autumn said, admiring her friend for being so smart,
This is part of what makes me think she's so young, I have so many issues with this, This idea, "He wants to live with me before marriage, That's because he's a scumbag, " It's young. That doesn't mean I don't think you have a right to assert that you want to live in your own place, but this whole conversation is more of one I'd imagine younger women having, not women who are supposed to be nearing thirty.
I'd assume if you don't want to have sex before marriage, you would have already told your man about this philosophy long before this, I also think her friend is having sex with Shawn, but resisting moving in with him because that's going too far, I also think this is something she should have discussed with Shawn a lot before this, This whole solidarity in the idea that men are fucking scumbags who are trying to con women into being wife without marrying them, The whole 'if you like it, you'd better put a ring on it' thing,
Not because I'm against marriage, I'm not, I'm not even against waiting to have sex until marriage if that's what you want to do, But twisting someone's arm into marrying you believing men are naturally and instinctively against marriage and won't marry you unless you force them into it is, um, flawed, Dating a man who's not mature enough to accept your decision not to live with him and gets in huge arguments with you about it and tries to force you to go against your beliefs for his convenience is also troubling.
"Can you imagine me in college" She let out a nervous laugh,
"What's so funny about that"
"I could never go, I'm not smart enough. "
Later in the book, Autumn KNOWS someone is breaking into her apartment over and over again, but never says anything to Cody because 'she doesn't want to cause trouble.
' This is frankly horrifying. I knew she was spineless, but this is a new level of amoebaness, Not only does she have super low selfesteem, but apparently can't even be bothered to protect herself from being violated if it might inconvenience someone else,
The whole thing is a huge downer, Reading about someone who thinks this little of herself is really depressing, This wasn't a heroine I was rooting for, instead I felt pity for her and really want to yell at her, It's hard for me to believe she's, It's also really hard for me to believe she is ready and capable of being in a relationship when she's this weak and selfhating,
Cody is an icky predator for hitting on a woman who is working for him, even worse because she's not able to leave it's courtmandated, EVEN worse because he's going after a woman who thinks she is shit and not worthy of male attention, and EVEN WORSE because she's presenting as so young and so vulnerable.
I felt like he was a shitheel for even looking at her sexually, Any man with any type of ethics wouldn't prey on this female, It's frankly sick.
I was highly disturbed that he was getting erections around her every second, pursuing her, and trying to fuck her, I can't imagine any man with a modicum of ethics or even selfrespect making a play for this woman, o. O
. He praises her with "That's my girl!" all the time, whenever she agrees to do what he wants, BLERGH.
. He is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE choice of someone to run a boys' home, He is AWFUL with the teenage boys, He doesn't discipline them or draw boundaries, and these boys desperately need boundaries,
One of the boys develops a crush on Autumn and lashes out at Cody about it, all the time, He threatens Cody, warns Cody to 'stay away from her,' tries to monopolize all of Autumn's time, Does Cody intervene and stop this shit Does he curb the boy Does he do any kind of discipline NO, What the FUCK
Later, the same boy is caught in Autumn's oh, that's it, he's going back to juvie, right WRONG, WHAT THE HELL.
I can understand Autumn cutting these boys a break and instilling no discipline, even though frankly they are very insulting and demeaning to her because she has no backbone and zero selfrespect.
But I for some reason expected Cody to be able to discipline the teenagers under his care and set boundaries to protect himself and Autumn, But he just doesn't. He let's them talk to Autumn however they want, right in front of him, He doesn't make any attempt to curb the one who is stalking Autumn and has a 'crush' on her, Even when that boy threatens Cody because he can see there is something between Cody and Autumn, Cody does nothing, o. O Baffled.
Roth claims Cody was once a foster child who was in criminal trouble, too, but I don't believe it for one second because he's so shit at this.
One boy steals a car and crashes it, and he doesn't report it to the cops or judge because he doesn't want to 'get the boy in trouble.
' o. O WOW.
. Just when you think he couldn't possibly be a WORSE choice for 'helping' the boys, he ACTIVELY encourages the boys to leer at females and 'check them out, ' I'm not joking. When he takes them out to a restaurant, he encourages them to 'check out' teenage girls, I'm not sure what the fuck is going on in this guy's mind, Really have no clue. His behavior baffles me.
. I want to like Autumn, a woman who has worked since age twelve and refuses to take handouts, I thought the book would be presenting me with a hard, tough, capable woman, Instead, of course, I get a spineless, selfhating girl who is sadly clinging to any bit of male attention thrown her way,
. The way Roth writes the 'street tough teenaged boys, ' It's SO FUNNY. She obviously either has no experience with this, or is SO constrained by Harlequin's regulations that she can't paint them correctly, but it's very laughable, The way they talk, the way they phrase things, . . it's very afterschool special and has NO basis in reality,
HOW'S THE SEX, CARMEN
SIGH,
Okay, well, on the good side, Autumn doesn't hesitate to put on the brakes when things are getting too heavy,
He slid one hand up the back of her incredibly smooth thigh,
Bad move. She stiffened.
"Don't, Cody. " She batted his hand away and pulled out of his arms,
She wants kissing only,
"Just one more," she whispered, her eyes impossibly luminous, "But kissing only. "
He's very obedient, and I am happy both with her setting boundaries and with him respecting them, They meet a lot of times to make out, That's as far as she'll let it go, I'm happy. He angles for more, she puts the kibosh on it, I was surprised this woman, who has been so weak and spineless for the whole book, is able to put her foot down about this, And I respect it.
But problems crop up after they do eventually end up having sex,
He's a total asshole,
After they have sex, he's like, "Well, I'm not in love with her, And I need my space, "
Then he's confused when she's standoffish and pissed at him,
Look, you
fucking idiot, She waited to have sex with you, I mean not long, maybe like a month, but still, She made it really clear to you that sex meant something to her and wasn't just a casual thing to her, She made you progress in stages, Now you basically are letting her know you got what you wanted, You used her for sex, And you have the AUDACITY to be surprised she's upset with you!!!!!
Again, this man just baffles me, And he immediately wants to keep fucking her and fuck her again and continue on their clandestine affair and 'just can't understand' why she may have a problem with that.
o. O
I have to hand it to Roth: one, because she gives Autumn the strength and presence of mind to hold off from having sex with Cody until she is ready.
She doesn't allow Cody to pressure her into having sex, Two, I feel like Roth is making a valid attempt at writing good sex here,
If only I could enjoy it, But I can't. Because I am not rooting for these two and actively dislike both of them, So all of Roth's talent at writing sex is wasted in this book, She also makes Autumn come really fast and easy, which I find hard to believe if we want to nitpick, But she's descriptive, tells me what's going on in bed, and Cody uses a condom, he engages in foreplay, and he makes Autumn come before having P in V sex with her.
. . things could be a lot worse, However, I just can't take an interest in these two fucking and I am not rooting for them to be together, so unfortunately all of Roth's efforts were for naught here.
TLDR: Ugh, Horrible book. The 'hero' is a predatory asshole who preys on a woman who is not only courtmandated to be in his house, but too weak and full of selfdisgust to be a viable romantic partner to anyone.
Only a complete scumbag would pursue this woman, He also is terrible at running the house and helping the teenaged boys in his charge,
Autumn saddened me a lot, She's SO down on herself, She hates herself and thinks she's worthless and stupid, That's not a heroine who is ready for love or a relationship, I think she has a lot of work to do on herself, learning selflove and selfrespect, before she even considers taking a man,
It was really depressing to see these two get together, And not romantic.
At the end, Roth expects me to believe OK. Whatever, all these jerks deserve each other, rolls eyes
ROMANCE CATEGORIES:
Contemporary Romance
Cowboy/Western Romance
NonVirgin Heroine
He's a Rancher / Boys' Home Manager, She's a Housekeeper because the courts forced her to be.