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A review by gemmalaszlo
Silver Springs by Carolyn Lampman
3.0
From the back cover:
She could deny her past...but not her wild desire...
Angelica Brady was a successful saloon owner in the Wyoming Territory who valued her independence above all else. She only agreed to leave behind the Green Garter to answer her twin sister's plea for help in avoiding an unwanted marriage. Disguised as straitlaced Alexis, the tempestuous firebrand discovered that her sister's fiance was none other than Ox Bruford, the one man from Angel's past who could send her pulse racing.
The more Angel tried to avoid her sister's would-be husband, the more she yearned for his strong arms and sure touch. But loving Ox would mean revealing her identity--and her heart. How long could her deception last when her lies were so boldly betrayed by desire?
And my review:
I bought this book after enjoying Meadowlark by the same author. Unfortunately, SILVER SPRINGS was a bit of a disappointment.
First off, the good points: this author has a flowing, easy-to-read writing style. She writes a good historical backdrop without having it overtake the story. The historical detail is woven into the background of the story--there are no sections that read like a textbook. The characters are well sketched, and real people with real flaws.
However, the characters were also this book's downfall. They were so stupid at times! Early on into the charade, Ox figures out that "Alexis" is really Angel. Rather than admitting it and letting him in on the secret (after all, it's their fathers that need fooling, not the hero) Angel convinces him that she's actually Alexis. She carries on the charade until almost the last page. I would have enjoyed it more if she'd let him in on the secret. Also, when the hero finally finds out that she's been lying to him all along, he's not even the least bit upset! No, he's a lovesick fool, so he's only happy. C'mon! Any person would have been at least a little mad at being tricked and lied to. I know "love is blind", but I think this was a little too unrealistic.
Also, Angel (in her Alexis role) tells Ox that she's engaged. That doesn't stop him from sleeping with her, even after she tells him about her (fake) fiance. Okay, she knows that she's not really engaged, but he doesn't. It was pretty hard to like a man who would willingly sleep with another man's fiancee. I never understood why Angel was so untrusting of men, either. The author never showed the reader why.
Another thing that really bothered me was the scheme of the hero and heroine to get revenge on their fathers. Now granted, their fathers were awful people, but I felt that the hero and heroine were really childish about it. How about just standing up to your father and telling him that you're an adult, and he isn't going to run your life? (They were both portrayed as strong people, so why were they so weak on this point?) No, instead they decide to put their fathers out of the stagecoach business. And part of this plan involves getting a band of robbers to rob the stages. The thieves have instructions not to hurt anyone, but still, the hero and heroine never even gave a thought to the innocent passengers who would suffer from these holdups. Maybe they wouldn't be physically hurt, but they would suffer emotional and psychological injury all the same. Many of them would think that they were about to be killed. Such an experience can ruin a person's life. Again, I found it hard to cheer for a hero and heroine who would stoop to such lows just to get revenge (which had already seemed petty enough).
And then, after all this build-up of how they're going to get their revenge, the author ends the story before the big confrontation with the fathers. Huh? It was as if someone had switched off the TV ten minutes before the end of a movie. It wasn't done yet! Don't make the revenge a huge pivotal theme in the book and then just leave it hanging unfinished at the end! (How satisfying would THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO be if the book ended before the confrontation between Dantes and Fernand Mondego?)
If SILVER SPRINGS had been the first book I'd tried by Lampman, I probably wouldn't have tried another. Read MEADOWLARK instead. It's much better, and the characters are worth cheering for.
She could deny her past...but not her wild desire...
Angelica Brady was a successful saloon owner in the Wyoming Territory who valued her independence above all else. She only agreed to leave behind the Green Garter to answer her twin sister's plea for help in avoiding an unwanted marriage. Disguised as straitlaced Alexis, the tempestuous firebrand discovered that her sister's fiance was none other than Ox Bruford, the one man from Angel's past who could send her pulse racing.
The more Angel tried to avoid her sister's would-be husband, the more she yearned for his strong arms and sure touch. But loving Ox would mean revealing her identity--and her heart. How long could her deception last when her lies were so boldly betrayed by desire?
And my review:
I bought this book after enjoying Meadowlark by the same author. Unfortunately, SILVER SPRINGS was a bit of a disappointment.
First off, the good points: this author has a flowing, easy-to-read writing style. She writes a good historical backdrop without having it overtake the story. The historical detail is woven into the background of the story--there are no sections that read like a textbook. The characters are well sketched, and real people with real flaws.
However, the characters were also this book's downfall. They were so stupid at times! Early on into the charade, Ox figures out that "Alexis" is really Angel. Rather than admitting it and letting him in on the secret (after all, it's their fathers that need fooling, not the hero) Angel convinces him that she's actually Alexis. She carries on the charade until almost the last page. I would have enjoyed it more if she'd let him in on the secret. Also, when the hero finally finds out that she's been lying to him all along, he's not even the least bit upset! No, he's a lovesick fool, so he's only happy. C'mon! Any person would have been at least a little mad at being tricked and lied to. I know "love is blind", but I think this was a little too unrealistic.
Also, Angel (in her Alexis role) tells Ox that she's engaged. That doesn't stop him from sleeping with her, even after she tells him about her (fake) fiance. Okay, she knows that she's not really engaged, but he doesn't. It was pretty hard to like a man who would willingly sleep with another man's fiancee. I never understood why Angel was so untrusting of men, either. The author never showed the reader why.
Another thing that really bothered me was the scheme of the hero and heroine to get revenge on their fathers. Now granted, their fathers were awful people, but I felt that the hero and heroine were really childish about it. How about just standing up to your father and telling him that you're an adult, and he isn't going to run your life? (They were both portrayed as strong people, so why were they so weak on this point?) No, instead they decide to put their fathers out of the stagecoach business. And part of this plan involves getting a band of robbers to rob the stages. The thieves have instructions not to hurt anyone, but still, the hero and heroine never even gave a thought to the innocent passengers who would suffer from these holdups. Maybe they wouldn't be physically hurt, but they would suffer emotional and psychological injury all the same. Many of them would think that they were about to be killed. Such an experience can ruin a person's life. Again, I found it hard to cheer for a hero and heroine who would stoop to such lows just to get revenge (which had already seemed petty enough).
And then, after all this build-up of how they're going to get their revenge, the author ends the story before the big confrontation with the fathers. Huh? It was as if someone had switched off the TV ten minutes before the end of a movie. It wasn't done yet! Don't make the revenge a huge pivotal theme in the book and then just leave it hanging unfinished at the end! (How satisfying would THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO be if the book ended before the confrontation between Dantes and Fernand Mondego?)
If SILVER SPRINGS had been the first book I'd tried by Lampman, I probably wouldn't have tried another. Read MEADOWLARK instead. It's much better, and the characters are worth cheering for.