And I Should Forgive You Why???? "Siren Beloved" by Sophie Oak

Aiden O'Malley left his fiancee, Lexi Moore, and their best friend, Lucas Cameron, after a night of passion left him shaken to his coresw. Years later, Aidan is back and he knows what he wants: he wants Lucas and Lexi forever.

Lucas has always been in love with Lexi, but he knows they need something more. They need the perfect Dom to complete their family. He never expected Aidan would be the Dom of their dreams. Lexi is hiding a secret. She knows she is drowning and the time has come to heal, but her anger at Aidan holds her back from moving on with Lucas. When Lexi's life is in danger, Aidan knows he will do anything to win them back--and keep them alive.

This is the fourth book in the "Texas Sirens" series and continues on with characters found in the preceeding novels. Alexis is the daughter of Jack & Abigail Barnes, who together with the "third" has their story told in books one and two. Lucas is Jack's half brother. Aidan is briefly mentioned but really doesn't come into his own as a main character until this book.

Lucas and Lexi have had an extremely close friendship/relationship for several years. Lucas knows all of Lexi's hurts and trials, has stood with her when Aidan walked away, brought Lexi into his world of BDSM at Julian Lodge's swanky "Club," Dallas' most infamous BDSM clubs and one where the membership fee would beggar most people. Because of their relationship to Jack Barnes, Lucas and Lexi have been experiencing this world weekly for quite some time but both know that they are only biding their time. Enter the mysterious Master A, a new and highly trained Dom who has agreed to work with Lexi and Lucas under contract and who is prepared to administer Lexi's "punishment" for her inappropriate behavior when she was drunk. But all does not go well, and just a little thing like noticing an old scar on the Master's face clues Lucas in to the fact that Master A is really Aidan.

Talk about the "spit hitting the fan!" All Lexi's old hurts, all her sense of rejection and betrayal because of Aidan's leaving her just three weeks before their wedding, all her subsequent years of feeling unworthy of love, of putting aside her dreams to be a novelist, of knowing that Aidan was probably the love of her life and wondering how she can go forward -- all come back to swamp her emotions and unleash her anger. Lucas isn't far behind. He, too, had loved Aidan as one of the two people he loved most in life. Aidan's rejection of them both hurt him as much as Lexi. Now what shall they do? It is only when someone begins to shoot at Lexi as she stomps out of her apartment that she reluctantly accepts Aidan's presence as he and Lucas take her away from Dallas to Aidan's ranch about several hours away.

This story is about three people who all share common hurts, who all love each other and are unwilling to acknowledge that love (with the exception of Aidan who is very up front in expressing his feelings), and who still struggle with the past. Aidan is scarred and broken in many ways because of his choice to go into the military and to come back home nearly dead. Yet now he will do whatever it takes to win his two loves back. He no longer cares what family or his small rural community might think of a polyamorous family. It's who he is and what he wants. Much to their collective surprise, the violence against them continues only now it is thought it is the work of a former girlfriend who seems intent on winning Aidan back, even though he has been very clear about not wanting her in his life any longer.

This novel is also about owning up to one's needs and being willing to seek the remedy that addresses those needs. Lucas is better at this than Lexi. There are some hurts in her past which Lucas has been trying to get her to acknowledge and address verbally, but she is like many of us when we think that stuff like that will go away if we just don't think about them or talk about them. Lexi was so 'stuck' but she just couldn't seem to face her fears and her pain. This story brings these people forward with all their wounds and brokenness and I think the author has used them to address some common kinds of problems many have, regardless of the kind of relationship may be in question. Obviously, not all individuals seek a remedy through the practice of the BDSM lifestyle , but for these three, the giving up of their closely-held personal power meant that they also opened themselves to one another at a level that was healing and restorative. And in whatever relationship one may find themselves, the bottom line is just that: being willing to be fully available in spirit, emotion, heart, mind, and soul. It means giving up the pain and sharing the joys; acknowledging one's need to submit or dominate, being honest and taking responsibility for mistakes, causing hurt, or failing to act wisely.

Human living and loving is messy, and in many ways this is a messy novel. When writing about life, the honest author acknowledges that fact and doesn't back away from the mess. Ms Oak is so many things as a writer, not the least of which is her innate honesty in addressing the realities of living and relating. All the characters in the novels in this series are connected with the BDSM lifestyle to some degree, but whatever the remedy people seek, being honest about the need and faithful in apply the remedy is ultimately the resolution.

I found all these books to be so very well written. The characters really come alive and in all Ms Oak's work that is a quality she brings to the writing task. This is most definitely a menage relationship and that may offend some. But any reader of romance fiction today has to realize that the menage is gaining in popularity in all sorts of romantic settings and genres. Not at all rare as it once was. But if one has difficulty with that family configuration, there is still the underlying message in this book: open and honest communication, loving one another to put the other's needs before one's own, being faithful in one's willingness to accept one another as they are, and always willing to take the risks of loving fully and deeply without regard to the future eventualities. When considering those qualities of relating, Ms Oak has "hit one out of the park" with this book. I highly recommend all the novels in this series. I give this book a rating of 4.5 out of 5.

I Am SO Stuck: "Wild Wyoming Nights" by Sandy Sullivan

Abigail Carter lost her firefighter husband on September 11th. On a mission to heal her heart, she starts a new life in the prairies of Wyoming. Her neighbor, hunky rancher and quarter horse expert Chase Wilder, makes her heart race for the first time in years, but will she let him get close enough to warm the cold winter nights? Chase rescues Abby from her overturned car in an accident similar to the one that took his wife. His dormant libido goes into overdrive when he looks into Abby's beautiful green eyes. Unfortunately, she's still struggling with her grief, and Chase doesn't want to push her. Can the two find a way to overcome the past and have a future together?

Well, reading buddies, my interest in "cowboy romance" continues. It is the strangest thing . . . just not something I even understand, but I guess some of this interest is due to the years we lived in Idaho and also for a couple of years in Salinas, CA where the huge rodeo is held every year, one of the three largest in the U. S., or so I was told.

Anyway, I found this book online and because it involved the widow of a 9/11 firefighter victim, I found my curiosity engaged and I found this to be a very good book. First in the "Wilder Series" it is the introduction to the Wilder family of brothers and their sister, all of whom were raised in a small community near Laramie, Wyoming and whose lives have been totally involved with horse and cattle ranching. Chase Wilder is known throughout the area as a breeder of first class quarter horses and Abigail Carter buys the property right next door, a house and property that have been vacant for some time. She is seeking a new surrounding and freedom from the crush of city living while she pursues the dream of breeding and raising horses which both she and her deceased husband hoped to experience sometime in the future. For Abigail, the future is now, and with the death of Josh, she is free to move forward. But that is very difficult, not only because of the normal grieving process, but because of the circumstances and because she and her mother both are intuitive, empathic people. She is "stuck" on the fact that on September 11 she "knew" something dark and terrible was going to happen. She just didn't realize it was going to happen to her Josh.

Chase Wilder is "stuck" as well . . . his wife died in an accident two years previously and he, too, blames himself for that event. His guilt over his preoccupation with his breeding business and the lack of paying attention that particular day to his wife's demands have convinced him that she would not have died had he been more attentive and responsive to her requests. Wherever the truth may lie for both these individuals, they are both riveted to the past.

Abby had driven snow covered roads in New York all her life, so a snow covered road in Wyoming doesn't scare her. But the severe Wyoming winds and weather take their toll and before she knows it, she is in a ditch, and the first person to find her is Chase Wilder. Out of that initial encounter comes the knowledge that they are attracted to one another. This becomes even more obvious when Abby "feels" that Chase has been injured and finds him in a bad way with a broken leg from being kicked by a stallion. Now they are thrown together daily as Abby feeds and cares for Chase's horses and because she is cooking and cleaning for him until he is back on his feet. Bottom line: they are both turned on, but neither is remotely interested in any kind of relationship so the course of true love does not run smooth with these two as the play the came of "come here, go away" repeatedly. Abby even dates one of the emergency room doctors who attended her following her accident, but the spark just isn't there.

At the heart of this story is the fact that neither Abby or Chase can get past their sense of personal failure in the deaths of their spouses. The author has used the literary device of "ghosts" of these two spouses as a representation of how such a sense of guilt can dampen any movement toward the future and any healthy processing of the loss. In Abby's case, Josh is urging her to find love, to recognize that he will always be a part of her, but that she must move on to a new love. Chase's wife, on the other hand, is jeolous and possessive in death just as she was in life and her efforts to keep Abby out of her house and her husband's affections is quite persistent. But this is not a ghost story, and points up the struggles any husband or wife must endure when they experience the loss of a spouse. It truly is like an emotional amputation.

In all the novels in this series the presence of the Wilder clan play an important part. Chase certainly is his own man, but he demonstrates many of the qualities his family has taught him and even when he is torn between his attraction to Abby and his loyalty to his dead wife, he is still trying to be an honorable and caring man. This is a very nice love story, that is beautifully written and which reads smoothly. The Wilder Family are people we would probably all like to know in real life and are individually and collectively upstanding and honorable people. Don't for a minute think this is a dull romance. It is anything but. There are surprises and upheavals, emotional ups and downs, some ghostly appearances and lots of family support. And behind the closed doors, there's some hot loving as well.

So if you are in the mood for a very nice cowboy romance, Sandy Sullivan has given us one that will satisfy and entertain. I give this book a rating of 4 out of 5.