Sometimes you can go home againIt’s just not always safe…Mary Cardwell Savage never meant to send that letter to her ex, Chase Steele. How could she know her words would bring the gorgeous cowboy back to Big Sky, Montana—with an unstable and dangerous stalker following close behind? Now Chase wants to prove that their love deserves a second chance. And this time, nothing will keep him from his … deserves a second chance. And this time, nothing will keep him from his heart’s desire…not even a killer.
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I loved this book! I will say, though, not necessarily as a romance. This one was all about the characters, in particular, a fascinating case study into the mind and motivation of a psychopath.
This is a book I’ve been looking forward to reading ever since sharing a brainstorming session with BJ Daniels and Delores Fossen. Ms. Daniels did not disappoint! If you’re looking for a strong romance, this might not be your cup of tea. Certainly, the romance is there between Mary Cardwell Savage and Chase Steele. They were too young when they first fell in love, and unresolved issues from Chase’s past made him not ready to settle down. But leaving broke Mary’s heart. But now that he has matured, experienced life, and has a clear understanding of his priorities, he’s come back to Montana to claim the woman he loves, no matter what it takes to earn her trust again. As an adult now, too, she comes to understand that her youthful expectations probably weren’t realistic, and that Chase’s choices were justified. So, a nice, reunion romance. But this one is mostly about the suspense with a really clever, diabolical villain.
It was also a nice bonus to get to revisit Big Sky and Hud & Dana Savage (Mary’s parents) again.
A true suspense novel with a light dose of romance.
A second chance romance with intrigue & mystery and a dangerous stalker. I was drawn in and didn’t want to put it down I enjoyed reading this book!!!
Chase has been gone for several years but after receiving a letter from his ex, he decides its time to go home. Mary is a cowgirl down to her boots. She was devastated when Chase left her. When she was feeling low she sent him a letter but now that he’s back, she’s not sure if she can trust him with her heart. But Chase isn’t the only one coming back to town, he has a stalker that has set their sights on Mary. Can he when her heart back and save the woman he loves?
A little too fast paced, the story felt a little rushed. Pretty good though with romance and a crazy stalker.
* Voluntarily read and reviewed this for NetGalley *
Loved it book. Great characters and the author never disappoints.
Let me start by admitting to being a fan of B.J. Daniels, romantic suspense novels and anything at all about cowboys, so the blurb for this novel rang my chimes. Add in a couple of murders, a second chance at love, and I’m there. Sadly, this novel, while it was an okay read, wasnt’t one of Ms. Daniels’ best novels, and I can only give it a 3 start rating.
Mary Cardwell Savage is the heroine in this novel, although she really seems to be more of a victim than a heroine. Chase Steel, the hero, was the love of her life–they met and fell in love in high school at age 15, but at age 24, when Mary was expecting a proposal from Chase, he up and left town to “find himself,” breaking Mary’s heart and his own, but fulfilling his need to sow some wild oats, and become a man–yet a man who had no clue and was desperate to discover who his father was, and who he’d blamed his entire life for the fact that his mother worked herself to death to feed and keep a roof over his head, while his father abandoned his then 17-year-old pregnant mother and left her to fend for herself and her infant son. His mother’s recent death, and the discovery of a carton containing some pages from her diary, are the catalyst that brings Chase, who was working as a carpenter in Arizona at the time, back home, to the girl he left behind, and a mission to find out who fathered him.
Unfortunately, a rather drunken Chase hooked up with a woman, Fiona Barkley, at a barbecue at the home of his boss, ended up sleeping with her, and had no idea that this woman was a deranged stalker, one who became instantly convinced Chase was her soulmate, and that they were destined to be together forever. Chase had told her at the outset that he was in love with another woman and that he planned to return home and marry her if he could get her to forgive him for leaving. But Fiona is very much like the heroine in the film, Fatal Attraction, undeterred by reality, and unashamed of repeatedly breaking into Chase’s apartment, where she finds a letter from Mary in Chase’s sock drawer, reads it, and starts plotting and planning to get rid of Mary, and make Chase pay for leaving her for another woman.
Mary, who is sick and tired of pining for Chase for years, finally starts dating one of her father’s deputies, Dillon Ramsey, much to her sheriff father’s dismay, since he doesn’t entirely like or trust Dillon, only hiring him as a favor to a friend, and although Dylan seemed nice enough to Mary at the outset, he’s got a dark past as well as prior convictions, and when Chase finally returns to Big Sky, Montana, Mary, who still loves Chase, continues to date Dylan, and no longer seems to know her own mind. It was at this point that I began to actively dislike her. From this point of the novel on, Mary can’t make up her mind about whether or not to give Chase another chance, but her waffling made little sense to me, because for someone who claims to still want to be with the love of her life, she sure has a funny way of showing it. Yes, she had reason not to trust Chase out of fear of him leaving her again, but even after he flat out tells her he’s been in love with her all along, and except for his drunken one-nighter with Fiona, who is now missing and presumed dead when she disappears from town and her car in found in the river, Chase has remained faithful to Mary all along. His delay in responding to Mary’s letter is explained by Chase, who tells her that he wanted to see if Mary would forgive him and be willing to start over with him, a message he wanted to deliver in person. As he’s packing his truck to leave, Fiona attempts to kill him, but after fending her off, and while Chase is gathering the last of his belongings inside, Fiona sabotages his truck, which now needs a new engine and delays him from returning home.
Meanwhile, Fiona, now calling herself Lucy, after faking her own death, has had plastic surgery, gotten colored contact lenses, dyes her hair and moves to Chase’s home town, where she gets a job as a barista, after killing the current one in a late night hit and run, and then moves into the vacant apartment across the street from the coffee shop, in a building that Mary owns, works out of, and which she was planning to rent to the now dead barista who Fiona killed, and quickly insinuating herself into Mary’s life, while planning to kill her too, to punish Chase for leaving her.
Fiona is clearly demented, and we’re given some reasons for her insane behavior, but I had fewer problems accepting Fiona/Lucy as a deranged, vengeful and murderous stalker than I did in accepting wishy-washy Mary, who is treated like gossamer by everyone, and who seems to have virtually no emotional depth whatsoever, and who doesn’t seem too eager to welcome back the the man she’s claimed to be in love with for more than a decade. Perhaps it’s me, but I’ve always felt that you either love someone or you don’t, and if you don’t love or trust them, why continue to keep them dangling on a string, which is exactly the way she treats poor Chase–the only sympathetic character in this novel, in this reader’s opinion.
The are more nefarious goings on as well in Big Sky, cattle rustling being one of them, and more murder and mayhem to follow in this novel, but what didn’t sit well with me was the fact that we got to see more of the workings of Fiona/Lucy’s devious and warped mind and emotions than we did of Chase and Mary’s, who are, after all, the hero and heroine of this novel. I’m also used to a little more heat in Ms. Daniels’ novels than there was in this one, which was pretty much void of anything more than a couple of kisses, and Fiona/Lucy’s insistence that she spent a meaningful and sex-filled night in Chases’s bed–something he doubts ever actually happened later in the novel.
While this novel wasn’t an entirely bad read, Ms. Daniels is a talented writer, it wasn’t a really great or believable novel one either, and it was easy to see where it was headed from the outset. Having read many of Ms. Daniels’ previous novels, I can say with confidence that this was not her best work by far. It lacked emotional depth, character development of the two main characters and a far less HEA abbreviated ending.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
Loved this book! Suspenseful and romantic. Can’t wait to read Hank’s story next.
Anything by this author is GOOD and on my “to read” list. Never disappointed!
Who are Chase and Mary? How do they know one another? Right after meeting Fiona in the book, I didn’t like her. Who is Dillon Ramsey? What does he do for a living? What happens when Mary is out at the ranch? Who calls her? What does Rick tell Chase about Fiona? Who is Grady? What are he and Dllon up to? Who is Lucy and what do we learn about her? What happens with Grady, Dillon, and Lucy had me shaking my head. Who is Jim Hunt? What do we learn about him? Read and see if we get an HEA out of this story!
RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A GIFT FOR A FAIR/HONEST REVIEW and REVIEWER FOR Bloggin’ With M. Brennan.
All B.J. Daniels books are wonderful.
Let’s start with the things I liked about this book. First of all, the premise ticked almost every box on my must-read checklist. The blurb promises murder, and there is in fact abundant murder. Most of the victims are even people who really do need to be murdered. There’s one victim who even the killer admits was simply a means to an end, but still – three out of four is not a bad ratio, right? AND it’s a second chance romance. And there’s a legitimate detective story in there.
I loved the fact that Mary, despite having had her heart broken by Chase (see below), has gone on to live a productive and good life. She hasn’t withdrawn to live in the attic sitting in her white wedding dress like a certain nineteenth century literary figure we all know and might secretly have nightmares about. No, she does good things, and she’s built up a profitable business for herself while helping the ranchers in Big Sky.
She’s also an accountant. As a recovering accountant myself, it pleases me to see more accountants in the world.
There’s a beautiful subplot involving Chase’s family that is handled in just an amazing fashion. Even with the issues I had with this book, I found myself in tears over this subplot.
Some of the things that made me less comfortable…
Well, there were a few aspects of the book that struck me as deeply regressive. For example, let’s take the antagonist. She’s in this fight because some woman has stolen her man. We get a good view into her thought processes, and they’re so cringey I almost put the book down.
I don’t want to pretend people like Fiona don’t exist in the world. I’ve known a few. I knew a woman who insisted she was engaged to a man simply because he said hi to her at a party and hadn’t called her ugly to her face. (She’s been in counseling and is doing much better now.) The thing is, it’s very clear that Fiona has a serious illness, but the author treats her motivation as a rivalry and not Fiona’s childhood traumas (which are brushed off as possible delusions or lies) or Fiona’s untreated mental illness. (Which… the less said about making people with mental illness into brutal murderers the better…)
The characters themselves don’t necessarily express an abhorrence of sexuality. They don’t seem to express any specific feelings about sexuality, with the exception of Fiona. The author definitely seems to be holding some strong judgments about sex and sexuality, because she goes out of her way to prove in the end that Chase and Fiona didn’t have sex after all.
Even though Mary and Chase had broken up and been apart for years, yes that’s plural, by the time Fiona came into Chase’s life, it was that important to prove that Chase had been properly chaste. I mean maybe they do things differently in Montana, and I’m certainly not here to judge people who legitimately want to be celibate for any reason under the sun.
It just felt incredibly judgmental to me, which fits under the “regressive” umbrella.
The way the two “love interests,” Chase and Dillon, fight over Mary puts me in mind of two stags butting heads. And not only does it not make sense under the circumstances, which would be a spoiler to get into here, but OMG IT’S 2019 WHO ACTS LIKE THIS? Fortunately, Mary has an appropriate reaction to both of them.
And Mary was generally treated as though she was some kind of delicate, glass-blown ornament by most of the people in her life. Her father had suspicions about the boyfriend, but thought she needed to be protected from those suspicions (which wound up putting her in danger.) Chase broke her heart in the beginning of the book because he left “for her own good,” which don’t even get me started.
Something that struck me about this book, and I can’t decide how I feel about it, is how incredibly white everyone was. Now, it’s set in Montana and Montana is not exactly known for being a hotbed of diversity. I’m just used to living in places with a good mix of people, from a wide variety of backgrounds, so this kind of threw me for a loop. I think it wouldn’t have been so jarring to a reader from a background similar to the main characters, maybe.
TL;DR: Steel Resolve has a lot going for it with some deeply moving moments. There were a couple of moments I found challenging, but this will probably not apply to all readers.
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for my own reading pleasure.
thriller! It was a mix of all my favorite genres…cowboys, HEA romance and thrilling, scary killers. It had it all. This is a solid best seller. A new author to add to my favorites list.
This book was gifted to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
This is a heartwarming, sexy, thrilling and emotional second chance filled with danger, intriguing charters, heart pounding action and exciting rekindled passion… was a great reading experience from beginning to end. I really enjoyed this adventure and look forward to the next one.
This book could be classified as a second chance, suspenseful, mystery romance. Wonderful characters both good and bad and a fast pace narrative, make this book an exciting read.
Chase Steele never knew who is father was, his mother refusing to tell him. However, when he was 15, and she was first diagnosed with cancer, she sent him to live with the Jensen family at their ranch in Big Sky Montana. During those years, he also fell in love with their next door neighbor, Mary Cardwell Savage. Unlike most of their peers including her 3 brothers, Mary had no desire to go off and see the rest of the world. She just wanted to go to college near by and then come home to her legacy the Caldwell Ranch. When they were 24, feeling they were too young for marriage, Chase left, heading to Arizona where his mother was, Mary refusing to go with him. He never stopped loving her. After his mother’s death he decides it is time to go back to Big Sky and Mary, even though they had not kept in touch. Meanwhile, a friend of his mother’s, leaves a package for him with the Caldwells, labeled to be delivered to Chase after her death. Mary sends him a melancholy letter telling him about the package, about the same time he had already decided to return to her. However, he has a crazy stalker obsessed with him, who follows him back to Big Sky with revenge in her heart, and deaths in her wake. Can Chase convince Mary that she can trust him? Can he keep them both safe?
I received an ARC from NetGalley.com. This is my voluntary and unbiased review.
An easy read without too much mystery or suspense…but lots of crazy stalking. A little slow in places but I liked it. 3.5/4 stars
This book had potential, which is why I gave it three stars. Too much, self blame and silly angst. I would find places that moved into a good storyline, then zingo, back to the self blame and silliness. Not a bad read, just mediocre.
Another suspense from BJ Daniels that I couldn’t put down. This one didn’t have as much romance as I would have liked but I loved going back to Big Sky and the Cardwell-Savage family! I’ve missed them! However, you don’t have to have read those books to read this one! I’m not going to rehash the story but Mary and Chase have been separated and Chase realizes that he belongs with Mary so comes back home to Montana but a totally unbalanced woman follows him because she is obsessed with him and doesn’t want Mary to have him. For me, there was a little too much time spent with this woman and not enough of Mary and Chase. I wanted more of them! The book was supposed to be about them and not the stalker but I understand it was trying to build the tension and suspense! I’m already looking forward to the next book in the series!
I loved every minute of this fantastic debut to the Cardwell Ranch-Montana Legacy series with complex characters and a well-crafted thrill-ride that kept me on the edge of my seat, turning pages as fast as I could to see what was going to happen in this can’t-put-down book. I really liked Mary Caldwell Savage and her dynamic with everyone in Big Sky, Montana especially Chase Steele who returns to prove their love deserves a second chance with an unstable and dangerous stalker following close behind.
Steel Resolve is a must-read for anyone who enjoys well-written contemporary western romantic suspense. I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley and I am voluntarily leaving my honest review. I also purchased a copy to read again later and look forward to more from this gifted author.
This was a good second chance romance combined with several elements of mystery and danger. Mary and Chase were friends and sweethearts through high school and college. Their youth worked against them when Chase left Big Sky, breaking Mary’s heart. They never forgot each other or their love. When Mary received a box to deliver to Chase after his mother’s death, it gave her the excuse she needed to write to him, though she never meant to mail that particular version of the letter.
Chase left Big Sky to find out who he was. He never knew who his father was, which left a huge hole in his heart. Even on her deathbed, his mother refused to reveal that information. He lived and worked in Arizona while caring for his mother, and was in bad shape on the day he picked up her ashes. After having too much to drink, he ended up spending the night with Fiona, something he recognized as a mistake the next morning. Even after explaining that he was in love with another woman, Fiona wouldn’t leave him alone, convinced that they belonged together. Mary’s letter gave Chase the push he needed to return to Montana, escape from Fiona, and hopefully win back Mary.
Meanwhile, back in Big Sky, Mary attempts to move on with her life. When she doesn’t hear from Chase about her letter, she’s hurt. She tries dating one of her father’s deputies, but he doesn’t measure up to her memories of Chase. She stays busy with her work and frequent visits to her parents’ ranch. She’s stunned when Chase appears at the ranch declaring his love and wanting a second chance. Things got complicated when Dillon showed up. It was interesting to see how different the two men handled it. I loved how Chase made it plain to Mary that he wasn’t going anywhere.
I liked the rekindling of the relationship between Mary and Chase. Chase is determined to win her back, but Mary is a bit hesitant. She isn’t sure that she’s willing to trust her heart to him again. I liked that Chase was ready to give her time, but also wasn’t going to back off from showing her how he felt. One thing that brought them together was Chase’s search for his father. The contents of the box Mary gave him contained some clues, and Mary offered to help him figure it out. I loved how she understood how important it was to him and how she supported him. I ached for Chase as the search continued and he met various potential fathers. It didn’t take long for Mary to realize that her love for Chase is as strong as ever and to want a future together. But there is someone who has vastly different ideas on the subject.
From the very beginning of the book, there is a front row seat to the bane of Chase’s life. Fiona’s obsession with Chase and what she believes is a scary thing. Watching the lengths she went to in getting close to Mary was terrifying in its complexity. I was glued to the pages as I waited for Chase to get a clue and hoping that it wouldn’t be too late. The final confrontation was intense, with Mary in a fight for her life. It had a satisfying ending, with later revelations giving context to Fiona’s actions.
There was a minor storyline about some cattle rustling that was intertwined with some of the characters. It gave vital information about the motives of one of the characters. Though the mystery was resolved, it did not go the way I expected it to.
I am a long-time reader of B.J. Daniels’ books and it was fun to see that we are now moving on to a new generation of Cardwells. Dana and Hud’s story was told in Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch, and over the years we have seen their family grow. I’ve always enjoyed the glimpses into the lives of previous characters. I look forward to seeing what comes next.
Chase Steele has loved one woman. He needed to leave to find himself. He is a hard worker, learning a trade. In the process he has become sought after but he needs to return home. He needs to make promises. Mary Caldwell Savage has measured everyone to Chase and found them lacking. She has her own business to keep herself busy. She has decided to dip her toes back into the dating pool. She couldn’t have pick a better time. Chase has returned and the two are in a pissing contest. Trust has been broken and not earned again. In the midst of all that, a stranger has come to town. No one is safe Enjoyable book
Chase Steel made the biggest mistake of his life when he moved to Arizona, leaving his love in Big Sky, Montana. When he receives a letter from his love, Mary, he realizes that he needs to go home…to Montana and Mary. The woman he briefly met in Arizona, Fiona, is not happy that he is leaving and returning to Mary. She makes it clear that she will do what is necessary for Chase to be hers. Trouble starts when Chase is delayed due to vandalism to his truck. Was Fiona involved in the vandalism? Surely, she would not be that vindictive. Chase will do all that he can to prove to Mary that he loves her and they belong together. How could he know by returning home, that a crazed stalker would follow him, bringing harm to those he loves. I received an advance review copy at no cost and without obligation for an honest review. (by paytonpuppy)