Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 Review

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(More customer reviews)I greatly enjoyed Proulx' Close Range collection of short stories,
and Bad Dirt (subtitled "Wyoming Stories 2") is a very worthy
encore. The Close Range stories gave a wonderful flavor to the
rural areas of the state, the people, the land, the warm and the
rough sides, both past and present. Some of the stories were
humorous, others were harrowing, some were a whimsical mix. You'll
find just the same mix (and a bit more) in Bad Dirt. You start off
with a 12-page story about Game & Fish Warden Creel Zmundzinski (who
turns up again in a couple of more stories) that begins in a nice
straightforward fashion, and then takes off into a kind of
humorous Proulx-Stephen King joint venture (or perhaps
Proulx-King-Carl Hiaassen).
Several stories center on the residents and the 3 bars in the tiny
town of Elk City: I very much like reading another of Proulx'
short stories when I feel that I already know the characters well
(one of these is a kind of Proulx-Hiaassen mix involving rental
alligators--it sounds bizarre, but the story works in a truly
delightful way).
The best of the stories is The Wamsutter Wolf, and runs about 35
pages. Buddy Millar lives in a $40/month rental housetrailer
5 miles out from the center of a small boomtown (almost all
trailers). You don't get much for your $40 a month. His only
neighbors live close by in an even grungier trailer--a bully who
beat him up in high school, his wife and passel of grungy young
kids, one of whom is a 4-year-old alcoholic (his father believes
that learning to drink young avoids the problems that come with
learning later). This is a horrifying and harrowing story--
stronger than anything I remember in Close Range. It's very
tough, utterly realistic, and it left me wanting to see it
expanded to about 300 pages as a novel.
Annie Proulx and William Gay (I Hate To See The Evening Sun Go
Down) are the two best short-story writers I've read in many
years--and both write excellent novels as well.

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Cowboys & Buckaroos: Trade Secrets of a North American Icon Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is fun and easy to read. Answers any question you can think up. It's going on my "keeper" shelf.

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For years, western enthusiasts have pondered questions about how the cowboy does his job. This book is a comprehensive manual describing the cowboy's and buckaroo's job.

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Sugar Daddy Review

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(More customer reviews)When awkward teenager Liberty Jones meets self-assured, loner Hardy Cates her life is changed forever. Liberty and her mother have just moved to a trailer home in Welcome, Texas. Hardy lives in the same trailer park with his mother and three siblings. Both the Cates the Jones families don't have much in the way of money, but their ties to their family make their lives complete. Liberty's mother works hard to support her daughter on her own, and when she becomes pregnant, Liberty steps in to help shoulder the extra burden. Likewise, Hardy also comes from a single parent home (his father is in prison) and he works hard outside the home to provide extra income for his family.
Liberty is going through puberty when she first meets Hardy and she falls for him hard. He is her constant advocate, helping her with tests, teaching her to play basketball, helping her see her own inner and outer beauty. But Hardy wants nothing more than to one day leave the sheltered trailer park life behind him and make something of his life. He is determined to not wind up like his father and he knows that falling in love with Liberty will only make it harder for him to go. To both of their dismay, he refuses to get involved with her and he walks away from Welcome and Liberty without turning back. Shortly after, Liberty loses her mother in an accident and is left to raise her two-year-old sister alone.
Forced to act as a single mother to her sister Carrington, Liberty makes sacrifice after sacrifice to ensure they are both fed, healthy, and happy. She sets out on a career path as a hair stylist and moves with Carrington to Houston to work at a prestigious salon. Once there, she meets Churchill Travis, a successful businessman who the other stylists tell her would make a perfect "sugar daddy." Liberty has never considered such an arrangement, but when Churchill takes a personal interest in her and offers her a live-in position as his assistant, she lets herself be swayed for the sake of her sister. Living with Churchill will give Carrington opportunities Liberty could never afford on her own. Soon Liberty has found love, happiness, and contentment in the Travis home and things are going well. But when Hardy steps back into her life after nearly 10 years, she has to decide if she's willing to sacrifice the happiness she's found for the future she'd always dreamed of.
I was skeptical when I found out Lisa Kleypas, one of the leading authors of historical romances, was going to be writing a contemporary novel. I mean, her historicals are so good--why ruin a good thing? Well, I'm here to admit that I was wrong. I forgive her for going the route of contemporary, and if they're all going to be this good, I say keep at it. Sugar Daddy was "unputdownable." I read it in six hours and stayed up until 3 in the morning to do so (and I have to go to work in the morning). But there was simply no other choice. I became absorbed in the characters, in the story, in the outcome and I just had to know how things were going to work out. Liberty Jones is a well-drawn character who develops from a shy, awkward teenager into a self-assured, confident guardian to her sister. She puts herself second to ensure that Carrington is well cared for and even sacrifices her own love life for the good of her family. When she finally finds someone to love, I was so happy for her, but then Hardy stepped back into her life and I had to wonder if she'd made the right choice. Hardy Cates was the stereotypical first love, but more than that he helped Liberty find her own womanhood. When she felt awkward and uncomfortable he put her at ease, and when she went through hard times, he picked her up. I wanted things to work for them, but at the same time it took Liberty so long to move on that I almost resented the easy way in which he walked back into her life. I've read enough romances that I can usually guess how they'll end (happily, of course), but Sugar Daddy's ending was a pleasant surprise for me. This story ranged from laugh out loud funny (the emu story) to heartwrenchingly romantic, and every emotion in between. Pick up Sugar Baby when you're in the mood for a stellar contemporary romance that will keep you on your toes, but make sure you have a few hours to spare because you won't want to put it down.

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The Orange Slipknot Review

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(More customer reviews)Tutor Jan Young draws from her husband's real-life experiences as a cowboy in The Orange Slipknot, a novel set on a Nevada cattle ranch for young readers in the middle grades. Twelve-year-old Ben doesn't want to be treated like a child, but he's at wits end trying to deal with his short-tempered father and the old cow boss with a grudge against him. A salt-of-the-earth, modern-day tale about riding and roping, and coming of age.

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Many of today's books for middle-grade children feature monsters and magic, but few relate to the unique challenges of growing up on a ranch in today's West. It is difficult to find a novel that models life lessons even as it keeps the reader engaged.Winnemucca author Jan Young does both in her first novel, The Orange Slipknot (Raven Publishing), geared especially to boys. A childish prank, Ben's GREAT IDEA, gets him into serious trouble with both his father and Fred, the crusty old cow boss on the Nevada ranch where Ben's dad cowboys. Ben must prove he can take responsibility for his actions. Even the reluctant reader will find in twelve-year-old Ben a hero to whom he can relate, and will be captivated by his adventures as he tries to walk in his father s footsteps. As Ben encounters stampeding horses, a mountain lion, and snow-covered hairpin-turns down a mountain road, the reader will learn about the culture of the buckaroos living and working in the Great Basin region of the western United States today.

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The Cowboy Way: Seasons of a Montana Ranch Review

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(More customer reviews)If you want to retain the cosy illusion of the cowboy as a gun-toting, chain-smoking, horse-riding champion of open ranges, you will find little of it reinforced in David McCumber's excellent first book. But as he says, I have always been a Westerner, which means I have always thought about being a cowboy. Thinking and doing are different."
McCumber is former assistant managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner and founding editor and publisher of Big Sky Journal, who, at 44, decided to spend a year slaving as a cowboy on a huge cattle ranch in the high mountains of Montana.
It turned out to be a labour of love for this award-winning journalist who at the time was facing a mid-life crisis and gives the reasons for his sabbatical as: "journalistic curiosity about a lifestyle glorified to the point of religion in our culture. It was the final step of letting go, signing on as a gray-headed greenhorn, proposing to make my living out-of-doors, with my body as well as my brain."
His detailed description of the Montana cowboy's unenviable daily grind is thoroughly engrossing. In fact this book would be the perfect manual for the ignorant Dude who fancies working on a ranch: there's everything here from rousting renegade steers to the right way to build and repair fences in a snow-drift halfway up a mountain, learning new mechanical skills in the ranch's machine shop and garage, assisting with veterinary operations, and fighting brush fires.
McCumber's Montana is a harsh world where cowboys from disparate backgrounds bond while working against extremes of weather. Sadly, the cowpoke's four-legged friend - the horse - has been largely replaced by the more cost-effective small all-terrain vehicle (one driven by petrol not grass), occasional sorties in the Boss's helicopter, and Shank's Pony. By the end of the book, I felt as worn out and exhilarated as the author, whose every moment and enthusiasm for hard work I felt I'd shared.
"Many Montanans see their homeland turning from a great place to live and work," he says, "into a virtual theme park full of designer-dressed Westerners who don't understand what it really takes to make a living on the land." Who would blame them for there must be an easier way of making a living than the one vividly described in McCumber's book. After reading it I no longer dream about being a real cowboy but at last I now understand why some people still do.
But a cowboy without the comfort of a cigarette still seems a contradiction in terms.

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Desert Heat Review

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(More customer reviews)Attempting to escape a rejected love turned stalker, Patience Sinclair heads south, to the rodeo. Originally, the trip was planned just to work on her disertation, but escape becomes the focus.
The rodeo is a whole new world. Cowboys, barrel racers, and courageous clowns have their own civilization in which Patience becomes enthralled. It has its own inherent romance, and Patience soon has to face her fears when she gets entangled with an overly amorous cowboy. Before trouble can get out of hand, she is rescued by the someone who won't be turned aside. Dallas embodies everything a man ought to be, and is willing to be there for Patience.
When the city girl learns that danger lurks even there, a serial killer is on the loose, she will need all her own skills and all of Dallas' courage to handle the situation. If she lives through it, it will be time to go home, and leave behind her heart. Can she do it, or is there another way?
**** Some writers pen such wonderful books that reviewers almost hate them; it's hard to write about the story without letting out too much, and then reading lesser books is painful. However, although Kat Martin fits this category, I don't want her to ever stop. She makes the settings and people seem real, yet still has the slight larger than life quality that makes reading her books an escape from reality. ****
Amanda Killgore

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