A Wyoming rancher finds love where he least expects it in this heartwarming second-chance romance Micah Torrance could use a helping hand. Between managing his expansive Wyoming ranch and caring for his willful little girl, Janey, Micah’s plate is more than full. Usually, it’s not in this cowboy’s nature to ask, but when beautiful Karina Carter offers her help, Micah can’t resist. With her sweet … With her sweet smile and her easy way with Janey, Micah wants to trust her. But he knows better than anyone that love only leads to heartbreak.
Champion ice-skater Karina Carter needs a fresh start while her body heals. Caring for little Janey is just temporary until she can get back on the ice–or so she keeps telling herself. But the longer she spends with this gorgeous single dad, the more drawn she is to him and the family they could share. Now if only she can convince him that she’s here to stay, this new life with him could be beyond her wildest dreams.
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Another Diana Palmer must- read!
Awesome book
I do read a lot of Diana Palmer, but at the same time, find her writing style a bit off putting. Still, most of the time her stories are decent and this is one her more entertaining ones. what I don’t like about her writing style is a tendency to repeat, repeat, repeat as a way of developing her characters. Also, she tends to have small petite women with BIG MANLY MEN. Would like to see some variety. Think its her settings more than her characters that I like. But as I said, this is one of her more entertaining stories, and with a happy ending.
Found the book to be pedantic and highly repetitive without developing either plot or characters. Characters were very flat. Somehow the reader is to understand that the “hero” will be bright and sensitive despite tolerating a Cruella de Ville competitor for the heroine. Very disappointing from this author.
If I could give this book 3 1/2 stars it would be a truer rating. I love Diana Palmer and have enjoyed all of her books. I liked this one as well, but it had one thing that really bothered me. The editing. I don’t mean grammar or misspellings, but the redundancy. In the first chapter, we learn about Karina’s injury and accident that killed her parents 3 times. Each written a little differently , but repeating the same scenario. I almost didn’t make it past chapter 1, I was so annoyed. It happens a few times more throughout the book…..a lot of repetition.
Other than that, the story was great and the secondary characters of Janey and Burt a joy to read. Glad to see Micah come to his senses with Karina and let love win.
Wyoming Legend is about a world famous ice skater Karina who breaks her leg during practice. She goes to hide in Wyoming to be the babysitter for a nine-year-old girl and teaches her how to skate and in turn regains her confidence to skate again and falls in love with a dashing rancher.
It’s been a long time since I read a Diana Palmer book. I have fond memories of her books and can always trust Palmer to deliver the tropes I love. Wyoming Legend is no exception, however it was a different kind of story I was use to from her.
Wyoming Legend focuses more on Karina’s personal journey rather than the romance. She spends most of her time skating and taking care of the hero’s nine-year-old daughter Janey. They each gain something from each other. Janey gains a kind female, adult who cares and looks after her. Whereas Janey gives Karina confidence to skate again by displaying the youthful enthusiasm and joy for skating she forgot about.
There is a lot of time spend on skating, techniques and such which I appreciated. It wasn’t too technical to where it was boring and confusing, but it really drew me into the heroine’s character and her love for the sport.
The romance was very secondary which I didn’t mind. There were still a few hot, sexy moments between Karina and Micah. Micah spends the majority of his time with his fiancee, Lindy who is just plain mean! Even as he develops feelings for Karina and displays jealously, he stays with Lindy. It took him a long time to breakup with her. And when Karina and Micah finally got together, he let her go to pursue her dream of skating.
Okay, I liked so much about this book. I loved our heroine, her determination, her backbone, and her vulnerability. She was easy to like there was so much good about her, and she wasn’t annoying. I wanted her to find someone, and I was even okay with it being our rancher hero. Yes, he figured out her wanted her but did squat about it at the time. He did finally come around though, and it was almost like we got two characters in one for him
So the problem? When our hero flipped out at our heroine for cheating, which that was essentially what he was doing with her. That he claimed he was ‘blind’ to the abuse his fiancee rained down on his daughter when he was right there beside her when she did it.
Another problem? This is in most DP books, and while just a little but here, maybe the above set me off, but the belief that only a religious woman would remain a virgin. Like, what? huh? I would just once like to see a DP heroine who kept her virginity because she wanted to, not someone else dictating what she should do with her body. Or, she hadn’t met the right person that she wanted to be intimate with. This is so much more believable than someone say it is for religious reasons
Which brings me to my third problem, the stabs and slights to liberals in the book. It is underlying, but it was there. The hero buys an oil company and strike magically ends, and he chuckles while saying it. More signs and protestors in the street, too busy to be at home paying attention to their children. That people only focus on the negative a president does, not the good things. The situations they were in for the book, added nothing to the story, and were off-hand comments, and were not needed. Political leanings can absolutely be included in books by authours, but for me, even if I disagree, it should add to the development of the characters or the story. That was not the case here
So, there was lots I liked about the story, and even both characters by the end, but there were just a few too many things that downed it to an okay read for me
I love Diana Palmer and this one of her best in a while, if your new to Diana Palmer I suggest you start with a few of my old favorites True Colors, Justin or The Outsider are a few of my all time favorites
Love her writing ,and the cowboys she writs about. one of my favorite authors . I will read all of her books.
Absolutely great
Diana Palmer’s books can always be counted on for a great read….sometimes I read them again and again.
I am and have been a die-hard fan of Diana Palmer and have read every single book she’s ever written, and yes, I know her predictable formula by heart: a pure, virginal heroine, her parents deceased in some sort of tragic accident, a wealthy, rude, jealous, obnoxious but handsome, sex-obsessed, hero with lots of black chest hair who is usually 11 years older than the heroine, and who is usually dating a cold-hearted, demanding but beautiful woman who is after his money (Micah and Lydia, respectively), plenty of incorrect assumptions about the virginal heroine who had a bad experience in the past with some man trying to rape her, leaving her terrified of sex, and also long passages about history and cattle. This novel has all but one of the aforementioned, but what surprised me was that in this novel, the heroine, Karina, was an Olympic figure skater who broke her ankle and who was told that her injury meant she could never skate again. Since she has no money and no degree to fall back on, she takes a job babysitting Janey, the 9-year old, skating-obsessed daughter of the aforementioned hero, who lives on a remote ranch in Wyoming, and those changes in topic were the primary reason that I gave this novel 2.5 stars rather than the two stars I felt that it actually merited.
Karina’s relationship with Janey was, in my opinion, the best part of this novel. Since I’m also a huge fan of figure skating, and once, as a young child, also had dreams of Olympic ice, I fell in love with Janey and her Olympic dreams, and I loved the way Karina’s need to teach her to properly figure skate slowly overcame her own fear of the ice. However, since she didn’t use her professional name when she applied for the job, she’s secretive of her past and the World Championship gold medal she and her pairs partner, Paul, received prior to her training accident. It doesn’t help that that Micah’s self-absorbed and nasty fiance, Lydia, once won a bronze medal for skating at a small, regional competition and she does nothing to properly encourage or teach Janey anything about skating, and does nothing but yell at and belittle her attempts to skate, all while Micah does nothing to support or defend his only daughter, being too sex-obsessed with the incredibly obnoxious Lydia, and putting his libido ahead of his daughter’s verbal and emotional abuse. To say that it was impossible to like Micah is putting it mildly–I thought he was grossly neglectful of his child, sexually abusive to Karina, who was his employee, and totally clueless about his uber-nasty girlfriend, who belittled Karina and Janey endlessy, and then flat-out lied about Karina’s relationship with her former pairs partner, Paul, turning Micah against her without even questioning the lies Lydia told. Frankly, I couldn’t understand Karina’s interest in a man who was pretty much an absentee father, and one who put his sexual needs above his daughter’s abuse.
My other issue with this novel was how incredibly repetitive it was. I often found myself skimming over passages I’d read more than once, among them the story of the plane crash that killed Karina’s parents, which was repeated at least four times, Karina’s prior injuries to her left leg, and her fear of getting back on the ice, repeated ad nauseum, her internal debate about her future, Janey’s issues with Lydia’s treatment of her, and on, and on, and on. At least I was spared long passages about the cattle on the ranch, which, for a change, weren’t Santa Gerturdis, Ms. Palmer’s favorite cattle breed, and also, thankfully absent, was the history of Wyoming, something that was ever-present in Ms. Palmer’s Long, Tall Texans series. Since all of her Wyoming Men novels are more lengthy than her Long, Tall Texans novels, it seemed to me that all the repetitive passages were simply there to pad her word/page count, rather than to add to our understanding of the characters and the motivations behind their often irrational and erratic behavior. The good news was at least Karina never once referred to the hero as “dishy.”
Yes, of course, there’s an HEA ending where the always abrasive Micah suddenly becomes Karina’s romantic fantasy boyfriend, but again, he never discusses his plans for their future with her, he just barrels ahead and plans their wedding and their honeymoon without ever asking Karina for her opinion about anything, let alone asking her to marry him before making his plans. It would have been a very nice change if somewhere along the way Karina developed a backbone, stood up for herself and told Micah to stop steamrolling right over her, but sadly, that didn’t happen, and although Karina got her happily ever after, as I reader, I thought this novel left a lot to be desired.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
I really liked it, it was a good read
This was a sweet romance. The ending left you feeling good. A lot of books now are so dark it is refreshing to read something that is life affirming.
Diane Palmer never fails to give you a good read. The story of Karina and Micah keeps you on your toes. Found myself wanting to scream it Karina and tell her to communicate. That was a heartwarming story and well worth the read
Love Diana Palmer’s writing. Her characters are believable.
A favorite author delivers another excellent read!
Like her books
I love all of Diana’s books. I have all but one. This one was another winner. I wanted to smack Micah for how he treated Karina but she got even in the end. Now Lindy needed to be dropped of a very high bridge, she wasn’t worth the air she breathed. Keep up the great work Diana you are my favorite author.
This would make another great Hallmark movie.