TEXAS STAR

Author: Elaine Barbieri ISBN:0843951796 1/2004 HISTORICAL Publisher: LEISURE
Time Period: Old West

SINS OF THE FATHER... Buck Star was a handsome cad with a love-Fem-and-leave-'em attitude that broke more than one heart. But when he walked out on a beautiful New Orleans socialite, he set into motion a chain of treachery and deceit that would threaten to destroy the ranching empire he'd built and even the children he'd once hoped would inherit it.... CAL... A mysterious message compelled Caldwell Star to return to Lowell, Texas, after a nine-year absence, but he never expected to find the home place or the old man so rundown. Still more disturbing was was the stubborn young widow who refused his help, but needed it more than she could know. Her gentle touch and proud spirit give Cal strength to face the demons of the past, to reach out for a love that would heal his wounded soul.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Now, I have to confess right up front that the historical western romance genre is not one of my favorites. In all truth, it is my least favorite, and this factor alone might have been partly responsible for my opinion of the book.

Having said that, though, I have read Elaine Barbieri’s other historical romance novels with great relish, so I consoled myself with the fact that since she is usually a brilliant author, and if anyone could make this genre interesting, it would be her, so I tried my very best to keep an open mind. Unfortunately, my mind kept snapping shut—as did this book—every few minutes. The book was just as plodding and predictable as I was afraid it would be.

The opening pages find us reading a cryptic note from a "mystery writer", accusing Cal Star of being responsible for the death of his baby sister, Bonnie, so many years ago.

The story revolves around Prudence Reynolds, a young widow with a 5 year old son, Jeremy. She inherits a Ranch in Texas, the "Rocky W", that is badly in need of major renovation. Prudence is such a bad rancher that she isn’t even sure if she has a viable herd of cattle, let alone know where they are. Naturally, her Ranch shares its boundaries with the Texas Star, the Ranch that belongs to Buck Star (the Hero’s father) and his much-younger wife, the exotic Celeste, who hails from New Orleans.

Buck’s son, Caldwell Star, has been away from home for many years, as he and his father have a great deal of animosity for each other over the death of Cal’s baby sister, Bonnie. One morning, Cal receives a cryptic message that makes reference to Bonnie’s death...and heavily implies that Bonnie’s death was Cal’s fault. Angered and tired of all of the family melodrama, Cal packs up and heads back to the Texas Star to confront his father, once and for all.

After the expected conflict, Cal gallops off in a huff, no longer having a place to call home, since Cal and his father can’t be within shooting distance of each other, let alone make amends! However, the Widow Prudence (notice how wonderfully convenient this is) is in desperate need of a ranch hand who is capable of, at the very least, milking Pru’s poor cow Lulu, who is in great pain at the moment from not being milked for the past who-knows-how-long.

Yup, you guessed it. Prudence hires Cal, and they start the totally predictable animosity/attraction thing. Oh, they fight it, of course, at least for a respectable period of time. But even when they do finally get together, it can’t be described as anything but lackluster, at best....boring, at worst.

Meanwhile in the background, we find out that Buck Star’s wife, Celeste, has a deep-seeded grudge against the entire Star clan, especially her much-older husband. We learn that Buck was originally Celeste’s mother’s lover, and he jilted her (being the handsome stud playboy that he was), to return home to his wife and kids back on the Texas Star. So Celeste’s mother dutifully kills herself, which in turn causes Celeste’s father (who totally worshipped his wife, of course) to die of a heart attack, leaving the poor prepubescent Celeste an orphan, with only her black-magic conjuring nanny, Madalane, to care for the young Celeste.

The rest of the book is very predictable, from the ranch border cow thieving, the feuds between father and son, and conniving Celeste trying to stir up the family pot with innuendo and accusations. In the end, of course, Prudence and Cal fall deeply in love, and everything is on its way to a happy ending, with just one minor hitch.

The last line of the book was obviously set up to write a sequel, as you have the same "mystery writer" conjuring up yet another note about Bonnie’s unfortunate death.

All in all this book was predictable, right down to the end. I know that the last page was supposed to intrigue the reader, have them panting to get their hands on the next book, but for me, it was just plain annoying. I had to bribe myself to get through the book with internal "No more food until you finish this book." Well, when that little self-imposed punishment didn’t work, I had to become even more stern with myself, issuing the threat of, "OK, Geni, until you finish this book, no more oxygen for you"! Well, as you can probably guess (since I’m still here to write this review), that little threat did the trick. But I really did have to pull out the "Big Self-Inflicted Punishment Guns" to struggle through this one.

I won’t be reading the sequel as I think that we can all pretty well figure out who the "mystery writer" is going to be. However, this book was just the proper thickness to prop up my overloaded bookshelf, which contains many wonderful books by Elaine Barbieri. I’m thinking that this book was a fluke, as all of her other ones have been true gems. Unless you are a die-hard Barbieri fan, or someone who has to have everything she has ever written to complete their collection, I'd suggest giving this one a miss.