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Anna Petruk's Reviews > When a Texan Gambles
When a Texan Gambles (Wife Lottery, #2)
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by
Anna Petruk's review
bookshelves: genre-romance, owned-ebook, fiction, e-book, read-in-english
Apr 30, 2018
bookshelves: genre-romance, owned-ebook, fiction, e-book, read-in-english
This book was SO DUMB I'm afraid reading it might have caused some brain damage.
So it starts out with a mail-order bride trope. A western historical romance. Great. I love that. Let's see what we actually get.
The heroine... I have no words. She was so awful, stupid and .... just... UGHHHH!!!!!
The first day of their marriage her new husband gets stabbed in the back. When Sarah sees him bleeding and he asks her to take out the knife she tells him he owes her, because she doesn't like the sight of blood.
How heartless do you have to be, to see another human dying before your eyes, your husband no less, and not give his life or pain any mind, only worrying about the mild discomfort caused to you by TAKING THE KNIFE OUT OF HIS BACK??!!
They have to run away, and there is no time to see a doctor, no medication available. So Sam has to just drink whiskey and sleep, hoping to heal. What about Sarah? Oh, she just yells at him for drinking, because she doesn't like alcohol. Again, no compassion whatsoever to the fact that he's in agony.
When he passes out in a fever near her, and all she's worried about is that maybe he'll try to have sex with her.
Guuuurl. The guy is HEALING FROM A STAB WOUND. I bet sex is not very high on his current list of priorities, especially when he's unconscious.
When he falls down and hits his head on her metal sewing box, she's worried about the sewing box. (I'm not kidding, this is an actual scene from the book)
She believes the very worst about him in every situation, even though she knows nothing about him and has no reason to believe these things. And when he tells her the facts, she doesn't believe him, of course. And yells and insists that he's an awful person. For no reason.
Right from the start, she refuses to sleep with him and he promptly backs off. But then she starts asking him to sleep by her side, then kiss her, then touch (but nothing more!), and after he takes all that without complaint, she starts parading before him naked - because she wants to feel like a woman, you see! And he doesn't seem very affected by her. And so when he tries to initiate sex with his wife, what does Sarah do? She shoots at him. Shoots. At her husband. With real bullets.
She misses, but that's beside the point. And how does Simon react to the violence his wife unleashes on him? Oh, he walks up to her and starts kissing her. Sure, no need to make it clear that shooting at you is unacceptable for your wife. Way to go, cowboy!
Sarah is the dumbest, cruelest, most heartless bitch I've ever seen in a romance book. And Sam, who is supposed to be this super badass bounty-hunter is later said to have "buried more than one coffin filled with rocks to give an outlaw a second chance." Sure. Because that's what bounty-hunters do, apparently.
Another major issue I had with this book: Sarah was a widow. And her first marriage? Of course, if the heroine is not a virgin, then her first husband MUST be:
- twice her age
- toothless
- rapist
- always openly saying he still loves his first wife and only her
- poor and loosing their home
- a general bastard who never talks to Sarah, never helps or does anything decent.
Sure, you couldn't give her at least a semi-decent friendly husband, let alone a good one who loved her and whom she liked? Of course, that's off limits.
Overall verdict:
So it starts out with a mail-order bride trope. A western historical romance. Great. I love that. Let's see what we actually get.
The heroine... I have no words. She was so awful, stupid and .... just... UGHHHH!!!!!
The first day of their marriage her new husband gets stabbed in the back. When Sarah sees him bleeding and he asks her to take out the knife she tells him he owes her, because she doesn't like the sight of blood.
How heartless do you have to be, to see another human dying before your eyes, your husband no less, and not give his life or pain any mind, only worrying about the mild discomfort caused to you by TAKING THE KNIFE OUT OF HIS BACK??!!
They have to run away, and there is no time to see a doctor, no medication available. So Sam has to just drink whiskey and sleep, hoping to heal. What about Sarah? Oh, she just yells at him for drinking, because she doesn't like alcohol. Again, no compassion whatsoever to the fact that he's in agony.
When he passes out in a fever near her, and all she's worried about is that maybe he'll try to have sex with her.
Guuuurl. The guy is HEALING FROM A STAB WOUND. I bet sex is not very high on his current list of priorities, especially when he's unconscious.
When he falls down and hits his head on her metal sewing box, she's worried about the sewing box. (I'm not kidding, this is an actual scene from the book)
She believes the very worst about him in every situation, even though she knows nothing about him and has no reason to believe these things. And when he tells her the facts, she doesn't believe him, of course. And yells and insists that he's an awful person. For no reason.
Right from the start, she refuses to sleep with him and he promptly backs off. But then she starts asking him to sleep by her side, then kiss her, then touch (but nothing more!), and after he takes all that without complaint, she starts parading before him naked - because she wants to feel like a woman, you see! And he doesn't seem very affected by her. And so when he tries to initiate sex with his wife, what does Sarah do? She shoots at him. Shoots. At her husband. With real bullets.
She misses, but that's beside the point. And how does Simon react to the violence his wife unleashes on him? Oh, he walks up to her and starts kissing her. Sure, no need to make it clear that shooting at you is unacceptable for your wife. Way to go, cowboy!
Sarah is the dumbest, cruelest, most heartless bitch I've ever seen in a romance book. And Sam, who is supposed to be this super badass bounty-hunter is later said to have "buried more than one coffin filled with rocks to give an outlaw a second chance." Sure. Because that's what bounty-hunters do, apparently.
Another major issue I had with this book: Sarah was a widow. And her first marriage? Of course, if the heroine is not a virgin, then her first husband MUST be:
- twice her age
- toothless
- rapist
- always openly saying he still loves his first wife and only her
- poor and loosing their home
- a general bastard who never talks to Sarah, never helps or does anything decent.
Sure, you couldn't give her at least a semi-decent friendly husband, let alone a good one who loved her and whom she liked? Of course, that's off limits.
Overall verdict:
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by
Dupse
(new)
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rated it 2 stars
Oct 01, 2018 04:14PM
My feelings exactly. It was just dumb
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@Dupse I was sad to hate it since I liked the first book in the series, but there it is... happens sometimes :(
that woman sounds terrible lmao
@Lia yeah, like cartoonishly terrible. I mean how did the author even come up with this stuff 😂😂😂
I'm so glad I read your review because I was so close to reading this. I swore off reading her because I hated The Texan's Wager, but then I saw this on my to-read list. This must be a common theme for her because I found the heroine in her other book to be the same way.
@Andrea quite true! I’ve read several and can honestly say I’m done!
WhatIReallyRead wrote: "@Andrea quite true! I’ve read several and can honestly say I’m done!"Good to have it confirmed. Then I have no qualms about never picking hers up again!
I can't help but think you didn't read the first book Sarah was literally sold to her husband by a goddamn lottery if that happened to me I would be a bitch too doesn't matter his intentions. Plus she didn't even want to remarry she just lost her husband and baby a year ago the fact that you just attributed her actions to her just being dumb I just can't ??? Did you even read the other books like ?? Are we that heartless that we can't understand why a woman might be hostile to someone else if they were forced to marry them god damn
The book isn't the problem to me this review is freaking dumb
@Maiya lol I did read this book and the previous one. So, we don’t agree. Is that so mind-boggling?
Honey I come from a country that this situation is reality for some women. And let me tell you some of them fight until their spirits are broken. It's mind boggling to me that your reasons for disliking this book is so dumb. You can dislike any book you want I don't care but at least make it make sense. Or just use your critical thinking skills it's not hard.
@Maiya, so in your country women who are in this situation and fight until their spirits are broken also ask the husbands to kiss, touch, sleep together and intentionally, voluntarily, repeatedly parade naked before them to get attention? When the husband never made a pass at her after she said she wasn’t interested; when she had many opportunities to leave? I think my review makes sense, and the heroine’s actions don’t. This wasn’t a book about the reality of such marriage with trauma and Stockholm syndrome. It’s a genre romance with this trope, the author’s poorly written fantasy. I read it 3 years ago and have read 300 books since then, so not interested in discussing further. Buy honey!
I have no idea what’s with the bad review, I loved the book
@Yanet glad you enjoyed it!
How about the fact that she never grieved her baby's death? Never even named him/her? In fact, other than to tell us that the baby died, we never hear a thing about him/her.
I thought I was the only one who find Sarah's character rude/heartless. So glad I stumbled upon this review
That was helpful, skipping!
