A review by thenia
A Lady of the West by Linda Howard

3.0

The story of Jake, a man focused on taking revenge for his family and regaining control of their lost ranch, and Victoria, a woman who gets married to a man she doesn't know in order to save her family.

Victoria's husband is the man responsible for the death of Jake's parents and Jake is working under cover at the ranch to gather information that will aid his and his brother's mission of taking it over. That's where he meets Victoria, whom he wants to hate, believing that she only married for money, but instead starts developing feelings for the more he gets to know her.

The two fall in love, but Jake's plans are in the way of their relationship, and

Spoiler

while Victoria is getting ready to run away with him, he disappears to gather his men and take over the ranch, making her think he abandoned her. She runs away on her own and having accomplished his goal, he runs after her, but his reasons for it don't appear to be very sentimental, since it turns out that he needs to marry her to keep control of the ranch

.

I wasn't particularly invested in their story, not really feeling the love between them, while being slightly annoyed by both secondary romances,

Spoiler

that of Victoria's cousin with Jake's brother who refused to commit to her just because, until at the very end decided to do so since she was carrying his baby, and that of Victoria's beautiful but not particularly bright sister, who finds love with a loving, tender man who adores her, only to end up dying of stupidity, when she gets too close to a wild horse everyone's been warning her to keep her distance from and it ends up trampling her

. All in all I didn't get the happy ending feels I love in romances from this one. Let's hope I'll like the next one, [b:Angel Creek|11544903|Angel Creek (Western Ladies, #2)|Linda Howard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328342011s/11544903.jpg|648380], better.