by
Petie McCarty
Petie McCarty
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Contemporary
Romance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
A cozy romantic mystery with suspense, Book 1 from The Mystery Angel
Romances series. An angel hidden in every book . . . it's up to the reader to figure
out who.
In No
Cowboys No Angels, Kellen Brand's inheritance turns out to be a whopper—one
dilapidated farm in West Virginia and one guardian angel!
Since
Kellen is convinced no sane woman would choose to live in Riverside, she vows
to sell her farm and quick. Her handsome neighbor Luke Kenyon must block the
farm sale or risk exposure of his family's secrets. While Kellen has located
one potential buyer, she faces a town full of objectors. Someone is trying to
frighten her off, and Luke is forced to step in and rescue her more than once.
Unfortunately,
Kellen can't seem to stay out of trouble. She stumbles onto a clandestine
hazardous-waste-dumping operation next to her farm, and she prays Luke has one
more rescue up his sleeve. It's her only hope of staying alive.
Unless
her mother really did leave her a guardian angel . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
Slowing near the tree line to get her bearings,
Kellen pulled over at a spot where the bank jutted out over the water. She
climbed out of the car and scanned the shoreline. To her right, the slope
flattened out and provided easy access to the water. The Tanawoc River
maintained a good current, sending soggy leaves and debris speeding past in its
flow. Grassy hills rolled back from the opposite riverbank, and she wondered if
the Clandestine Mining Company still owned all that property.
A familiar aroma wafted up from the river, a
combination of humus, plant material, microscopic plankton, and a touch of
fish. Unable to stop the smile slowly stretching across her face, she untied
her sneakers, rolled up her jeans, and slipped into the icy water. She immediately
gasped and felt her smile deepen to a grin. She remained in the soothing
current for a long time, taking in her surroundings as she watched trout dart
in and around the submerged rocks to grab their plankton lunch.
A horse whickered behind her, then came the
telltale creak of a saddle. Too close for comfort. The back of her neck
prickled. Ankle deep in the water, she couldn’t make a decent sprint for the
car, and Kellen regretted her impulse to visit this deserted stretch of
riverbank.
Easing around, she spied the towering silhouette of
a powerfully built man astride a huge black stallion no more than ten yards
away. The rider’s face lay shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed Stetson. The cowboy
made an impressive and, at this moment, intimidating sight—a throwback from the
frontier days of the Wild West.
The horse whickered again and sidestepped away from
the edge of the embankment, forcing the cowboy to twist around to keep her in
sight. She could feel his dark eyes scanning every inch of her. The intensity
in his gaze raised goosebumps on her arms, and a tiny shiver vibrated up her
spine. Trapped here along the edge of the river, she felt vulnerable yet
strangely unafraid. Would he come any closer?
A horn blared up on the highway, and she jumped
with a yelp. The big horse reared at the sound of her cry, and Kellen caught a
brief glimpse of the cowboy’s dark eyes, eyes that could stare right through to
a girl’s soul. She scrunched her own eyes shut and forced herself to breathe.
When she opened them, the rider was gone. Had she imagined him? Another mild
shiver rifled up her spine. No, the fearsome rider was definitely real.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
Petie
spent a large part of her career working at Walt Disney World—"The Most Magical Place on Earth"—where
she enjoyed working in the land of fairy tales by day and creating her own
romantic fairy tales by night, including her new series, The Cinderella
Romances. She eventually said good-bye to her "day" job to write her
stories full-time. These days Petie spends her time writing sequels to her
regency time-travel series, Lords in Time, and her
cozy-mystery-with-romantic-suspense series, the Mystery Angel Romances.
Petie
shares her home on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with her horticulturist husband
and a noisy Nanday conure named Sassy who made a cameo appearance in No Angels
at Christmas coming April 2019.
Visit
Petie's website or her Facebook page.
BIO
Social Media:
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My review:
3.75 out of 5 stars
No Cowboys No Angels by Petie McCarty is a mystery with
romantic, paranormal, and western elements. The challenges that Kellen Brand
faces when she returns to the town where she experienced such privation as a
child are not just the difficulty of facing her bad memories and selling the
family homestead, but her attraction to her sexy neighbor, Luke, and the ties
and relationships that seem to pick up right where they left off twenty years
ago. When danger escalates, Kellen can only hope that the guardian angel her
mother bequeathed her is still on the job.
This story is the first book in the ‘Mystery Angel Romances’
series and has quite a combination of elements. Of course I loved the sexy
cowboy hero who has a little trouble smoothing over his abrupt mannerisms when
dealing with the woman he sees as a big-city snob. Kellen was a little
frustrating with her hot and cold mannerisms toward the town, her former
classmates, and her exasperating neighbor—not to mention her incurable nosiness
and propensity for jumping to conclusions—but she does have redeeming qualities.
There are several very dramatic scenes that keep the tension
escalating and poignant issues that both main characters are dealing with that give
the story depth and emotion. Certain details are inconsistent to me, such as
whether a cabin has an attic, whether a benefactor would donate expensive
equipment but be obtuse to the lack of lunches for the kids, or even how a
certain bad guy ended up in the right place at the right time, but that didn’t
ruin my enjoyment of the tale. Overall, this is a fun and romantic story that
leaves one with a warm fuzzy feeling and reminds us of how important faith can
be.
A copy of this title was provided to me for review
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteNew author for me.
ReplyDeleteSounds great! On my TBR list.
ReplyDeleteShe sounds like she stumbles onto a lot of trouble and a maybe guardian angel? That sounds pretty good.
ReplyDeleteWhat book or novel had the biggest impact on you? Bernie Wallace BWallace1980(at)hotmail(d0t)com
ReplyDeleteOn Writing by Stephen King. Read it three different times. Part autobiography and part writing help. Thanks for asking, Joseph!
DeleteHave a magical week!
Petie
Thank you for taking valuable time to read and review my story!
ReplyDeleteHave a magical Spring!
Petie