Sunday, November 23, 2008

To Seduce a Texan-Georgina Gentry

To Seduce a Texan
Georgina Gentry
Zebra, Jan 2009, $7.99
ISBN: 9780821779923

In 1864 Texan "Waco" McCain informs his three compadres that they are in deep trouble with the Confederacy and have been directed to travel to Prairie View, Kansas to rob the local bank and bring the loot back to the Texas rebel forces. However, their plan proves impossible as the town is loaded with Union soldiers. Instead, Waco adjusts the scheme to a ransom ploy by kidnapping the banker Godfrey St. John’s stepdaughter, Rosemary Burke.

Rosemary is frightened, but vows to behave like the courageous heroines of the dime novels she reads. She knows her avaricious stepfather sees this as an opportunity to rid himself of a pesky, plump, plain pain in the butt since he has been unable to marry her to his thug of the moment. He needs her dead so he can own the bank. When Godfrey refuses to pay the outlaws, they lower the fee. Rosemary assumes they are morons, who fail to grasp her stepdad wants them to kill her. She revises her scheme to escape by seducing Waco and use him to reclaim her inheritance as his bride; Waco has no say in the matter even as he fears the Confederates will soon come for the four failed felons.

This amusing western romantic spin of the movie Ruthless People will have the audience laughing out loud with the antics of the heroine and the gang who can’t think straight. The story line is fast-paced from the moment the townsfolk except for the banker welcome home Rosemary as a heroine while the four tall Texans arrive in a sea of blue. The relationship between Waco and Rosemary is deftly changing over the course of the abduction as he wonders just who is the captive while willingly risk his life to keep her alive. Georgina Gentry provides an amusing historical that will have readers in stitches as the ransom of Rosemary is a seductive winner.

Harriet Klausner

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