Check Out The Missing Colton (The Coltons Of Wyoming #3) Assembled By Loreth Anne White Accessible Through Brochure

I enjoy the storyline of the Colton's, and particularly the author Loreth Anne White, The editing issues here are numerous, however, There were upwards ofof them, so it's not conducive to ease of reading when having to constantly do mental corrections and fill in the blanks, Proper editing matters. More mystery and romance at Dead River Ranch!!

This book is the third installment in The Coltons of Wyoming continuity in the Harlequin Romantic Suspense line.
The setting of these books is Dead River Ranch in the back of beyond Wyoming and the mystery centers around the cold case kidnapping of Cole Colton who is the son of crusty patriarch, Jethro Colton.
The hero of The Missing Colton is Jagger McKnight who is a freelance reporter who comes to the ranch to find out what happened to Cole in order to sell the story to the media.


I could not put this book down, Jagger McKnight comes to Dead River, Wyoming to hunt down a story, but he instead becomes the hunted one, Ms. White pulls back some layers to this complicated story, but only lets us see the top most portions of these layers and that only makes the reader anxious for more clues to solving the mystery that will come in subsequent books! Our heroine, Mia, who is the nurse at Dead River Ranch, falls for Jagger, even though she knows he is exactly the kind of man she should run away from, but we all know how matters of the heart can be.
McKnight is dealing with some severe PTSD issues, and Ms, White does a fine job in drawing a real picture of just how debilitating this disease can be, The tension and suspense in this book was palpable, I turned the pages carefully for fear of what twist or turn was on the next page, Without giving a real spoiler, I can say that I was happy that Mia stood by her man and they achieved their HEA, Since this is continuity, the mystery remains unsolved and we dont know who the bad guys are, While technically, this is a stand alone read, Im betting if this is the first of The Coltons of Wyoming book you have read, you will definitely want to hunt up the previous two books and most assuredly buy next months installment.


Thanks for a very satisfying read Ms, White. I always enjoy your books,

I was given a complimentary copy of this book by the author in exchange for my honest review,
Jagger thought of kissing her again, and heat sharpened in his groin, He thought of turning her over, making love to her, giving in to this woman, and that thought began to consume him with a blinding fire, But he held back.

There was something sacrosanct about Mia, something that couldn't be taken lightly,

He'd been using sex, alcohol, sleeping pills to blunt his flashbacks, to escape the memories, He'd felt no emotion when he slept with women after returning from Afghanistan, But this was different.

I didn't really like this book, Not because of bad writing, but because the hero was not acting honorably,

THE HERO
Jagger McKnight was kidnapped in a carjacking at agemonths, He was raised by a criminal woman who had accidentally kidnapped him when carjacking, At age, he was returned to his biological parents by the police, but as a result he is fuckedup in the head,

He becomes a foreign correspondent and is a lauded journalist working in war zones and other dangerous places,

Then he gets more fuckedup in the head and also has PTSD because he didn't shoot and kill a nineyearold kid who was strapped with explosives who came into the bunker he was embedded in and killed everyone in the unit.
Except Jagger.

Now he wanders the U, S. "like a tumbleweed" until he hears a news story about baby Cole Colton being kidnappedyears ago on Dead River Ranch, He gets a contract with book and TV to break the story wide open by going under cover,

On his way to the ranch, he is brutally attacked, When he awakes in the ranch infirmary, he allows everyone to believe he has amnesia and he allows everyone to call him "Cole" and act like he is the longmissing Colton son.



THE HEROINE

Mia is the nurse at Colton ranch, She fled Bellingham, Washington to forget about the shame and humiliation of being stranded at the altar,

When she is horseback riding one day, on her way to go flyfishing, she finds the battered, bloody body of Jagger McKnight, He has a scrap of Cole's baby blanket on him and a picture of Brittany Cole's mother holding baby Cole,

She starts falling in love with the dark, brooding amnesiac who is under her care,


THE GOOD

White is actually a pretty good author, She writes well, it's not stupid or cloying,

Grace scribbled the order onto her pad then lifted her eyes, holding Jagger's gaze a fraction longer than necessary, He recognized the look it was one he'd seen in the faces of the nameless women he'd taken into his bed, The waitress found him interesting attractive, even, And suddenly, like a sharp, blinding flash of light through his body, Jagger yearned for something clean and sunshiny fresh, For bright mornings without hangovers, for pure smiles, For the scent of shampoo with a name like Spring Breeze, The aroma of freshly baked muffins, laundered sheets that smelled like flowers and pine, A real and good woman in his arms, Hell, he couldn't even articulate to himself what he was feeling right now where these intense feelings came from, But they startled him in both their suddenness and ferocity, and inside he felt himself beginning to shake again,

I also like Mia, a guncarrying, flyfishing, horsebackriding nurse, As soon as her gun gets taken by the police for 'evidence,' she marches right to the store to immediately purchase another one, She's not aggressive, but you get the idea that she is capable and has a wide range of skills,


THE BAD

Jagger McKnight is not acting honorably, He is faking having amnesia and he is allowing everyone to believe that he is the longlost Colton son, He has a lucrative TV/book deal about breaking the story of the Colton kidnapping,

Mia is a kindhearted woman who is trying to help someone she sees who is hurt, It's dishonorable to use her for information and lie to her and put the moves on her all while she is believing Jagger is suffering from amnesia and is an innocent.
In fact he is a journalist and a plant,

Lying to everyone else in the household is one thing, allowing a woman to develop feelings for you and doing sexual things with her while she is under a very false impression of you is another.


And why is he doing this White is trying to convince us that he has some kind of noble intentions, as if it's very important to him to bring the kidnappers to justice.
But the fact that he's getting a juicy TV/book deal out of this gives me pause, Him being willing to exploit a grieving family and also exploiting his own kidnapped past really makes me feel like he is icky,

The way he treats Mia is also icky, ONE, he uses her name too much, You know when people use your name excessively as a power play Yeah, he does that, It's gross. Blech. TWO, even though he's completely lying to her every second of the day, he feels fine about prying into her private life, He asks her really personal questions and acts like it's his right to know stuff about her, even though he's obviously making her uncomfortable and forcing her to share when she doesn't want to.
Fucker. Guy's a snake.

Another thing I don't like is his history of nameless onenightstands where he obviously doesn't give a fuck about any random female he takes to bed.
This is not a turnon,


Mia isn't perfect either, For one thing, she just starts calling Jagger "Cole" as soon as she finds him, making all sorts of snap assumptions that he is the longlost Colton before the guy even regains consciousness.
She's forcing a LOT of history and drama on him with this name, It's not just a name, it's a burden and a legacy and a horror story all rolled into one, Of course, Jagger rolls with it, but what if he actually WERE an innocent with amnesia That's a hell of thing to do to a man,

She also goes through Jagger's email at one point which is wrong and breach of trust and privacy, NOT okay.

There is also a lot of "alpha" BS in this story, As if all men who have dangerous jobs firejumper, army, foreign correspondent, police are automatically "alpha males," whatever the fuck that term means nowadays, Mia berates herself for always being attracted to men who are adrenaline junkies who consequently treat women like shit, Not my idea of an 'alpha,' men who neglect and abandon their women to chase a dopamine high, but OKAY, The whole term of "alpha" means absolute shit nowadays, He's not particularly pushy or domineering in the bedroom, for which I am eternally grateful, Often being a callous, cruel piece of shit in the bedroom translates to "alpha" nowadays, and I really hate that, Which brings me to:


HOW WAS THE SEX, CARMEN

I feel like it's not White, it's me, White is trying hard to make the sex sexy, but I just wasn't having it, I was feeling the kissing, There was a little bit of kissing, but once we got to the sex, I checked out,

For one thing, I think it's an extremely shitty thing of him to do to have sex with her when he's blatantly lying his ass off and manipulating her for his own purposes.
Very low. Dishonorable. Perhaps this is what bothered me most about the sex,

But besides that, I just don't like how this guy fucks, At all. It's not pleasing to me, and there's a lot of problems here that make me unhappy, I won't list them, for heaven's sake, but let me just tell you it was a mess, Not anything cruel or Iownyou or shit like that, but just basic stuff that grated my cheese,

At least they used a condom, that was a plus,


Tldr Sigh, Worse than being a straightup bad book, this is one of those ones you read and see the potential there, but realize it was not utilized, White is a capable author, but her hero is pretty shitty and her sex scene is not up to standards, sitelinkColton by Blood remains the best book in this series thus far, We'll have to see how the rest of the series plays out, Good book. Jagger has been drifting along, trying to come to terms with his memories of the war when he hears about the long past mystery of the missing Colton baby.
As the victim of a childhood kidnapping himself he wants to put his investigative talents to work to bring justice to the missing boy, Before he can even begin his undercover investigation he is attacked and left for dead, Mia finds him and takes him back to the ranch to heal, All of his things have disappeared but he is left with two items that lead people to believe that he is the missing Colton, Not knowing who to trust, Jagger pretends he has amnesia while he tries to find out who is behind the attacks, When those attacks spill over onto Mia, Jagger knows he has to tell her the truth,

Both Mia and Jagger are running from their pasts, Mia was left at the altar by her fiance who didn't even have the guts to break it off in person, She has been left doubting her judgement in choosing men, Her exfiance was also an adrenaline junkie who swore that he was ready to settle down, When she finds Jagger she is immediately drawn to him but senses that there is more to him than he is letting on, She also suspects that he could be the long lost Colton though his amnesia makes knowing his past impossible, There is something about him that reminds her of her ex and tells her she should not get involved with him, but her heart has different ideas.
The more time they spend together the more she is torn between her two desires, When she discovers Jagger's deception she feels betrayed and decides to leave it all behind,

Jagger has terrible memories of his final assignment in Afghanistan, They have left him with physical and mental scars and nightmares that he can't escape, When he hears about the renewed search for the missing Colton it appeals to him on a very deep level, Having been a kidnap victim himself he can't understand why Jethro Colton had given up looking all those years ago, He feels that searching himself will give him back some of the self respect he lost, When he is attacked on his way to the ranch it is made to look like he is the missing Cole Colton, Not knowing who he can trust, he pretends to have amnesia so he has a better chance of investigating, He quickly realizes that he can trust Mia, but having begun the deception he doesn't know how to tell her the truth, As

they get closer he knows he has to tell her but he fears that it will drive her away from him, I found it very interesting that no one questioned his quick thinking and actions during the crises, I liked the way that being around Mia soothed Jagger's memories and allowed him to see the changes he had already made in his life, When Mia found out the truth he was desperate to make her understand but she didn't want to listen, I wasn't sure how they were going to get their happy ending, The way it happened was definitely heartpounding in its intensity, I really liked the way that Jagger got his love across to Mia, By the end I could see that both Jagger and Mia had been able to face and overcome their problems,

More layers of the mystery have been exposed in this book but there is still no resolution, Jagger and Mia uncover some information that makes Jethro's part in his son's disappearance rather suspect, though he slips into a coma before they can get any answers from him.
There is more activity from the person behind it all who may be a woman I have a couple ideas of who it might be, The investigations done by the sheriff are thrown into doubt as his actions become suspect also, I'm looking forward to the next books to see how many more things are exposed, .