When we left Hired
by the Cowboy at the end of its third chapter we abandoned Alexis Grayson at a
pivotal moment in her tumultuous life. Having met a dashing, sensitive,
attractive, old-fashioned, young Canadian rancher she had tentatively agreed to
a marriage of convenience, allowing he to save his farm and herd of cattle, and
allowing her somewhere quiet to pregnantly fester, learn to cook, garden and
tidy and experience the addictive joy of having a stranger care for you in
order to land a life-changing amount of money. For her titular cowboy and
owner, Connor Madsen hadn't bet on finding Alexis both charming and attractive,
despite noticing both of those qualities upon meeting her, as she lay
thankfully unconscious on the floor of a grocery store. Even though all seemed
curiously devoid of drama we had ourselves a lengthy novel to read, and now
with it read we can begin to ruminate on its many faults, such as dim-witted
characters, slack prose style and the contrived use of tornadoes to resolve
emotional crises. You, dear reader, may also read this book, for free, through the magic of the internet, although be careful not to get distracted by the cover of Baby Bonanza.
Ever since her
crusading historian parents died in a plane crash when she was however old she
was when it happened, Alex has been alone, resolutely determined to never put
her faith in anyone, in case they somehow die in a plane crash. Somewhat
miraculously therefore, and perhaps further proof she was right not to rely on somebody
else, she is with child and the father has long since disappeared, hopefully in
the direction of his own unlikely romance novel, or, failing that, an
aeroplane. The idea of a safe home, a little spending money and a fraudulent
wedding is just what she needs after an existence on the straight and narrow.
With the opportunity of a few month’s worth of recuperation and recipe-learning
she sets herself the task of giving birth and setting her baby up with the opportunities
she never had, until she too steps aboard an ill-fated flight. Once she is
settled, healthy and able to care for her fatherless, unsupported kid she will
move out of Connor's desolate ranch and start over, afresh and ready for the
next challenge, such as finding work and balancing motherhood with poverty and
scheduling.
Meanwhile, Connor
is a changed man since his parents and brother died in a car crash, many years
ago when he was however old he was when it happened. Since then he has given up
on his dreams to be a vet and instead worked tirelessly to save the family
homestead. Due to a beef scare his cattle may have to be culled, throwing him
into the grisly ordeal of bankruptcy and killing cows for no good reason.
Therefore, a timely marriage to an equally troubled soul would release his
trust fund early, staving off the prospect of losing everything. The majority
of Donna Alward's novel, after the swift establishing of plot, is spent on
wedding planning, shopping and touching, hugging and emotional support leading
to unresolved sexual tension. Both Connor and Alex have fallen in love with
each other, even before their wedding, but remain certain that initiating
romantic actions will jeopardise their untenable situation. Because Hired by
the Cowboy is a Special Moments release the author never indulges the reader in
a series of gratifying sex scenes. Instead of working hard to justify her
couple never uniting she chooses to drag out shallow emotional reasoning for
interminable periods of self-doubt and stupidity. While a Modern Romance would
have also resorted to unsubstantiated dithering at least we would have had
several bouts of love-making, not to mention Alex would be without womb foetus
and Connor would be a ruthless billionaire, and the novel would have been
written by Paige Cameron (How about The Billionaire Rancher Buys a Wife, or The Billionaire Cowboy Takes a Wife? Come on, Paige Cameron!).
Certainly the hero
and heroine have their motives for keeping their marriage strictly platonic,
the woman is pregnant, the man is noble, their futures are uncertain and they
agreed to a platonic marriage from the outset. However, Alward makes a series
of understandable missteps, a cuddle, revelations, promises, a sweeping kiss
with tongues and a shared empathy from having their families killed by
mechanical failure. There is simply no option for Connor and Alex but to end up
together and Alward has no idea how to keep them physically close yet
romantically apart. They have so much in common after all, they are in love
with one another, there isn't another human in a hundred miles and in a strange
twist of fate they are married under a poplar tree. If the husband's decision
to go all out on a fake wedding, especially given his perilous finances, seems imprudent
the reader would best be reminded they are reading a romance novel. Still, why
did he invite a hundred guests, buy a fancy dress for her and a tuxedo for him,
handcraft a gazebo, hire a band, serve food, exchange vows while making eye
contact and kiss the bride if their declarations of eternal fidelity were acts
of deceit? No wonder Alex is a tangled mess of hormones and mixed signals, and
she is only living it, we’re the ones reading it with the benefit of third person
interior monologues.
Her, and our,
problems are only exacerbated by a following trip to the local rodeo when the
assorted judgmental Canadians are able to see Connor with his new, clearly
showing, bride. Discovering that this social faux pas may cause some to ask
questions Alex flees to the boot of the pick-up, knowing all of Sundre will
have assumed Connor must be the father. This reinforces the major stumbling
block of any romantic hopes for the book's husband and wife. The reason they
cannot be together is because she carries another man's baby. Yet Connor would
make a wonderful father, and in his mind he is the father, because he has a
tenuous understanding of biology. Alex desperately wants she and the man she
loves to no longer be a fake family, but a real one, a change that would
require a minimal amount of effort. Despite these simple solutions the lovers
quarrel and Alexis resolves to move out. After all, she does not need to live
at the ranch for the marriage to exist legally on paper. If only they had
realised that from the beginning they could have saved so much time and money
by marrying at a registry office in jeans and T-shirts and Donna Alward could
have avoided writing the book thanks to a pragmatic loyalty to logic.
Instead Connor
opens a letter to discover his herd must be culled and no matter how great his
trust fund, or how much affinity shines from Alex's eyes, or how tempting those
sandwiches she has made look, nothing will save Windover now. Distraught at the
news he rushes out towards the hills on a swelteringly hot day. Seconds later
the clouds have turned grey, rain has fallen and a tornado has materialised.
There is nothing quite like thinking someone has died to make you re-evaluate
your feelings towards them, and sure enough hero and heroine confess love and
kiss in the wreckage of what is now their place where a home once was. Suddenly
neither care about any of the things Alward had previously been using as
narrative devices and neither do we, the incredulous readers, because we hadn't
been paying particularly close attention. A brief epilogue explains how the adoption
went smoothly, and no worries about the family's secret and shame of the Madsen
name, because Alexis is pregnant again, and this time we can only hope Connor
is the legitimate dad. Furthermore, the business is safe, as Connor and a
friend went into business rearing horses, an obvious solution no one had
bothered to think of before.
Bewildered Heart
chose Hired by the Cowboy because of Alward's statements in Secrets Uncovered
about dealing with heartbreak. However, there is little darkness here that
didn't appear in The Dad Next Door, which had the gall to kill off a child,
albeit a twin to lessen the blow. As with all of Harlequin Mills & Boon's
claims at greatness they are under-mined under the barest scrutiny. The tragedy
the novel supposedly deals with is contained within the back story, and while
Connor loses everything he easily recovers, and while Alex carries a baby the
father is never mentioned and this is merely a subverted plot-point from every
Special Moments example involving a single parent. Hired by the Cowboy has a
tender relationship at its heart, but makes too many inept errors to work
properly as a credible romance. The characters are too foolish to make for
believable human beings. As a result their decisions become forced and infuriatingly
slow for a storyline eager to push for behaviour unbecoming of anyone capable
of considering consequences and basic emotions. While the narrative felt
conceived from thin air as Alward went along she was able to give her reader
the happy ending that never seemed further than one honest conversation away. With
characters as homespun as Alex and Connor no one would begrudge them all those
children and a steady income, thus resolving the two issues established in the
opening chapter, when a girl without identity was hired to illegally acquire
funds to pay off business debts.
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