Review by Pauline Creeden
When a person gives up on finding love they can end up in one of two situations: they become a roving cynic, or they immerse themselves in their work and purpose. Give the Lady a Ride brings together a victim of each situation in a story that redeems both. Patricia Talbert is a mild version of the first. She is jaded and has given herself over to inward self-debasing while putting on a façade of control. Talon Carlson has spent every moment trying to gain and keep control, but since the death of his foster parents, he’s lost all semblance of it. When Patricia inherits the ranch that Talon manages, the couple is unwillingly thrown together.
Linda Yezak has done an amazing job of bringing these characters to life and making them likeable. Patricia is no cliché socialite and Talon is more than an ‘awe-shucks’ grin in a cowboy hat. The strings that entwine the pair are not based on love-at-first-sight, but rather a mutual need and finding parts to a puzzle that just fit the way they are supposed to. Throw into that mix the thrill and risk of bull riding, and you now have a story that is exciting and dangerous.
Both Patricia and Talon spend most of the book hating, or trying to convince themselves that they don’t want the other. While another couple in the story seem to have their love and trust all worked out, Patricia and Talon struggle with loving and being loved. It’s a bit of trouble that is well balanced and engaging.
In the movie Becoming Jane (2007) Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen says of her books: “My characters will have, after a little bit of trouble, all that they desire.” When I first read Linda Yezak’s Give the Lady a Ride, I felt that if Jane Austen lived in Texas during this century, she may have written this book herself. As a fan of neither western books nor romances, pure curiosity lead me to pick up this book and I am glad to have followed that notion.
Give the Lady a Ride at Amazon.com
