She’s no one’s second choice …Slater Highwater had his own reasons for coming home to Last Stand, Texas. And if anyone wants to know why a guy with a philosophy degree from an Ivy League school was now running the historic Last Stand Saloon, he has a stack of ready answers, none of which are completely true. But Joey Douglas never asked that question. Perhaps because she and Slater are always … she and Slater are always carrying on conversations no one else can follow. Or perhaps because she suspects she knows why he came home – her glamorous and calculating older sister broke his heart.
Joey has longed for Slater since she first laid eyes on him, but her sister will always be an insurmountable barrier between them. Sure she and Slater click intellectually and sparks ignite whenever they’re in the same room, but Joey will never, ever settle for being Slater’s consolation prize no matter how much she loves him.
Can Joey step out of her sister’s shadow? Can Slater convince Joey she’s his true soul mate?
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I’ve read several books in this series and loved every one. This is another that keeps you engaged throughout. Sexual situations but no foul language. Definitely add to your reading list.
Good story about a barkeeper and a librarian have a lot in common even if he dated her sister but he realized a pretty face isn’t enough now that he’s an adult. He needs a woman like the librarian to love long term
Excellent endearing story!
I enjoyed this whole series. Interesting characters developed through each other’s stories until they get their own make you keep reading and the bonds that are formed between the characters make you wish for some of the same. (Or at least that you lived in the same town.)
So Enjoyed
Slater always fought with Shane but no really figured out why. He has his master’s degree but he runs the family saloon. Joey is the assistant librarian and the younger sister of his ex but the are great sparing partners. But now they find they care about each other so much more.
Slater Highwater comes from a very influential family in Last Stand, Texas. Slater came home from attending a Ivy League school with a degree in philosophy and is now running the historic Last Stand Saloon. Everyone in town thinks they know why he came home and Slater has several ready answers, none of which are completely true. Joey Doulas thinks she knows why Slater came home…. her glamorous, very selfish, calculating older sister broke his heart. Joey has always longed for Slater but she was younger than him and eventhough she and Slater have always carried on conversations that no one else can follow and really “got each other” he got engaged to her older sister Diandra. Diandra went her own way, Slater went home to run the saloon and Joey works at the library. Her and Slater keep running into each other and start spending more time together!!! A very nice standalone with an HEA!! Good read!!
Loved it! Wonderful characters and interesting storyline. I can’t wait to read more of this series!
Bad Language so I skip a lot and didn’t read all. Nothing christian about this book.
Loved the characters!! Was fun to read.
This was a great read! I used to work in a library, and so much of this book struck a chord with me! You will love the characters, the plot, and of course the HEA!
I enjoyed the whole series, I like stories of family members. This was a really good one.
Tugged at the heart strings – all characters like able. Strong sense of family and small towns vibes.
Slater and Joey have known each other a long time, but since he was engaged to — and dumped by — Joeys’ sister, she can’t believe he would be interested in her. Each of them has depths that you might miss if you just looked at what they did for “work” during the day. Great individuals and a wonderful story as they their way to their relationship.
I just love stories that they start out as friends. It seems like the connection is so much more deep. They were perfect together. So romantic. I loved the last few chapters! Swooning!
I love Last Stand, TX and the first family of Last Stand in my book are the Highwaters. This is the second book in the series and one that I like so much I have read it twice so far. Once when it first came out (the day it released) and I just read it again. Slater Highwater has returned to town to run the local saloon with his big time degree. Yep.I know. I love how smart he is and the push and pull between him and his ex’s little sister Joey who just happens to be the current town librarian. When he left town she was a young women he was just starting to notice but now that he is back and she has grow up WOW! In turn form our author reminds us of the close ties this family has together as well as the ties they share with this wonder town.
Slater Highwater and Joey Douglas had grown up in Last Stand, Texas. Slater was four years older and had been engaged to Joey’s sister, Diandra. Diandra had used Slater and humiliated him in order to break their engagement. Joey had loved Slater since she was 14 years old but never felt that he would ever see her as anything other than his former love’s younger sister.
Slater began to see Joey as the woman she was and someone who got him. They were both academics and book readers who loved to quote philosophers. Something no one else understood. Was it possible that there could be something real and wonderful between them or would Diandra always be the link that broke that possibility?
I really thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and seeing how Slater and Joey both saw the error of their thinking. There is one descriptive sex scene toward the end of the book that I could have done without but other than that, the book was a sweet, wonderful romance.
I was given an arc copy of this book and I willingly offer my honest review.
I’m a die-hard fan of Justine Davis, very much enjoyed Lone Star Lawman, the first novel in this series, and enjoyed this second novel just as much. It gets a 4-star rating from this reader.
Lone Star Lawman was Police Chief Shane Highwater’s story, this novel features his younger brother, Slater, who, instead of returning home after their father’s sudden death and their youngest brother Kane’s disappearance, Slater remained at college getting his degree in philosophy before returning home. His relationship with his older brother, Shane, has been rocky ever since. Shane promised his father that as the oldest son, he’d take care of his siblings for the rest of his life should anything happen to his father. Shane was 18 when he died, and became more of a father figure than a brother to Slater, who is currently tending bar at the local, historically significant, Last Stand Saloon, and is a bit unusual for a western hero. Slater is not much into ranching, but instead has a literary bent and usually has his head in the clouds, pondering something historical and/or philosophical, but one of the town librarians, the shy, quiet, Joey (Joella) Douglas has no trouble following his philosophical musings and sparring quotes and literary references with him, and has slowly been turning him on to reading fiction.
Joey has an older sister, Diane, who wants to be called Diandra, and whose beauty meant she was never at a loss for male attention–she was, in fact, once engaged to marry Slater, but broke their engagement, and to Joey’s knowledge, broke his heart years earlier. Diandra married her first husband 5 weeks after breaking her engagement to Slater, and is now on her third husband for all Joey knows, because they rarely see one another and have little in common.
Joey has been in love with Slater from the time she first saw him, but in the looks department, she views herself as no match for her stunning but shallow sister. She contents herself with being Slater’s friend, but that’s about to change. Joey and her friends have a First Wednesday get-together at the saloon, and one of those nights, someone is causing quite a stir at the pool table. When 6’6″ Slater looks their way, he finds himself attracted to the woman who’s causing the stir by clearing the table–she’s got a great pair of legs and a nice butt, showcased by a flirty red skirt, and Slater is stunned when she wins and he realizes it’s Joey, seeing her as an attractive and desirable woman for the very first time. When the guy who lost the match accosts her in the parking lot later that night, it’s Slater to the rescue, and Joey doesn’t know what to make of his sudden change in attitude toward her.
When a memory surfaces of a conversation with long-missing Kane Highwater, Joey’s high school chemistry lab partner back then, it’s a new clue that sets Slater and Joey off on his trail for the weekend, and things between these two characters begin to heat up. In this slow-building romance, Joey doesn’t trust Slater and what appears to be his sudden attraction to her, believing she doesn’t have what it takes to attract a man as smart, sexy and handsome as Slater, especially since he almost married her gorgeous sister. The manner is which Slater attempts to woo Joey charmed the heck out of this introverted, avid reader and lifetime book nerd. However, except for one short, sexy scene in the closed saloon, the payoff just didn’t measure up to the heat level I’ve come to expect from Ms. Davis, and it was a bit of a let-down, as was the rather abrupt HEA ending, which I wish Ms. Davis had drawn out a bit more. It’s the reason I gave this novel a 4-star rather than a 5-star rating.
What didn’t let me down was the way Ms. Davis never fails to give us fully developed, believable characters in every one of her well-written, well-plotted novels, and I cannot wait to read the novels to come, getting to know the other Highwater siblings better, especially Kane. While it’s not necessary to read this series in the order it was written, I strongly suggest you do so because it will give you a better understanding of the dynamics between all the Highwater siblings, especially the relationship between Shane and Slater. All in all, a very good read that I’m happy to recommend.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
I loved the first book in this series, Lone Star Lawman, and this one was just as good. In that first book, I was intrigued by Slater. Something told me that there was more to him than first appeared, and I was right. Slater is the second oldest brother. He runs the family bar instead of being in law enforcement like his brothers Shane and Sean. Slater returned to Last Stand after graduating from Harvard with a philosophy degree and ending his engagement with his fiancée Diandra. He never says why he came back, just lets people make whatever assumptions they want to make. The only person who hasn’t asked why he came back was Joey.
Joey is the town’s assistant librarian. She is sweet, king, big-hearted, and has a sassy side that not many people see. She has loved Slater since she was a teenager and he was dating, then engaged to her older sister. They had a good friendship going, as Joey was the only person in town who could keep up with Slater’s conversational twists and turns.
I loved the development of the relationship between Slater and Joey. They were friends for a long time, even after the end of Slater’s engagement to her sister. Slater didn’t see her as anything but Diandra’s little sister until one night that he saw her playing pool at the bar. Suddenly he saw her in a whole new way and it kind of freaked him out a bit at first. It was fun to see his mental gyrations as he found himself more and more distracted by her. The more time that he spent with her, the more he realized the depth of his mistake with her sister. It was sweet to see his growing interest in Joey and how well he understood her. I loved the hang-gliding scene and how he knew precisely how to encourage her.
Joey was surprised by Slater’s growing attention. She was used to blending into the background, the plain, nerdy sister when compared to Diandra. As Slater continues to pay attention to her, she finds it harder and harder to keep her distance.
There was so much that Joey and Slater had going for them. Both of them are highly intelligent with an affinity for the written word. I loved seeing them trade quotations the way that other people trade quips. Both tend to lose themselves in thought, zoning out while the world goes on around them. They also have some significant issues that keep them apart. Slater is drowning in the guilt he feels over staying in college after their parents died, leaving Shane to carry the load of taking care of the family. That guilt shows up in the form of doing everything he can to antagonize Shane. He is so down on himself that he has trouble believing that anyone would want him, something that was reinforced by Diandra’s treatment of him. Joey suffers from some serious lack of confidence in her appeal to men. She thinks that she would be a “consolation prize” to anyone who had been interested in her sister. Though neither could see their own appeal, each one could see what the other was suffering. I loved how Joey gave Slater the ability to see his issue from a different viewpoint. Slater won my heart when he realized what made Joey hold back and was so determined to show her that his feelings for her were real. His method was so romantic and showed how well he understood her. There was an especially satisfying scene at the end that showed that the past no longer had a hold on either of them.
I loved getting more insight into the Hightower family. The relationship between Slater and Shane is still a difficult one for most of the book. There are hints of the lessening of hostilities as we see Slater’s reactions to Lily being part of Shane’s life now. I loved finding out the cause of the tension between them and how Joey’s influence brought an end to it. There was also more about Kane, the missing Hightower brother. Joey’s understanding of the pain they were all in, especially Sage’s pain, brought back a memory that gave her and Slater a lead in the search for what happened to him. My heart ached for them all as Joey and Slater pursued that lead. I can’t wait for the next book to see where the search goes next.
Joey and Slater’s love story in Lone Star Nights by Justine Davis, book two in the Texas Justice series, reminds us not to judge a person based on its cover or family. Joey knew she would never be as beautiful as her sister but she had her own assets; she was smart, well-read, hard-working, and caring. Since her beautiful older sister dated and became engaged to Slater Highwater, Joey was attracted to him and his intelligent mind. Joey always suspected that Slater was a loner because her sister broke his heart and suspected he would never be interested in her. Slater returned home from an Ivy League college with a philosophy degree to run the historic Last Stand Saloon, which his family has operated since before Texas reached statehood. It gave Slater a way to observe and understand the town people and tourists. Joey was one of the few who could hole their own in conversation or debate with Slater as well as probably the only person who understood him. Whenever Joey and Slater are together, their attraction and chemistry sizzle; setting off fireworks. Slater needs to figure out a way to convince Joey that she, Joey, is his true soul mate.
Ms. Davis wrote a wonderful and sexy story that is definitely not to be missed. She provided a tale rich with sexual chemistry, amusing banter, and endearing characters giving Joey and Slater a chance for happiness, love and a future together. I highly recommend Lone Star Nights to other readers and look forward to the next book in this series.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.
I thought at first that Lone Star Nights by Justine Davis would be your typical unrequited love story. I should have trusted this author to deliver more because she always had and did this time too. After what seemed like a slow start this character driven story took off. Looking back it really wasn’t a slow start; more of a building the characters so that you feel as if you know them inside out.
Family, siblings and relationships between them make up much of the story as Joey and Slater go from friends to more. There is a bit of danger, a smidgen of suspense, a dash of academics and a whole lot of romance in this story. The second in the Texas Justice which takes place in the Last Stand, Texas fictional town became a favorite as I continued to read. I liked Shane, the first Highwater to get his story but I fell in love with Slater in Lone Star Nights.
4.5 Stars
An ARC of the book was given to me by the publisher through Net Galley which I voluntarily chose to read and reviewed. All thoughts and opinions are my own.