To Seduce a Texan

To Seduce a Texan by Georgina Gentry
Why I read this: It was the cover and blurb that attracted me to it. Plus I can never turn away from a kidnapping plot.

Texan Will 'Waco' McCain and his gang are under orders to rob a bank in Prairie View, Kansas, and get the loot back to their home state, pronto. Trouble is, the town's crawling with Yankee soldiers so it's on to Plan B: kidnap the banker's stepdaughter. Nabbing the delectable Rosemary Burke turns out to be easy as pie. But Waco soon discovers the smart, stubborn heiress is quite the handful - in every sense.

Rosemary knows this kidnapping is the perfect opportunity for her greedy stepfather to get rid of her and keep her inheritance, which is why he's ignoring her captors' ransom demands. Truth be told, living in close quarters with the handsome cowboy isn't the worst thing to happen to a girl who's had few chances to hone her feminine wiles. Come to think of it, seduction might be her best chance at escape - not to mention a bit of fun.

With the ransom dropping, his deadline looming, and something entirely unexpected blooming with Rosemary, Waco wonders if this dangerous game she's playing is about to turn deliciously real...

To Seduce a Texan had elements that I enjoy in books.

1. Kidnapping
2. Historical Western
3. A parental villain
4. An ugly ducking heroine

It should have been a book that I had a good time reading.

It wasn't.

My first issue is that even though I like a heroine who is not model perfect, I don't like to be constantly reminded of her physical short comings. It was mentioned in just the first chapter alone that she was plump, too round or fat-- five times. It was mentioned several more times, per chapter, until chapter four. From then on it was repeated only every other chapter instead of every other page, like it had been.

My second issue is that the heroine was made out to be a lady. Dialogue from people around her as well as her own inner dialogue stressed it. She expected to be treated like one, however, she had a mouth that no lady in that time would have used. Her favourite thing to say was "shut up" and she was fond of name calling.

My third issue is that there were several phrases both in narrative and dialogue that were used, word for word, more than once. It was distracting to read the same things over like that. I kept getting flashes of deja vu, and twice I stopped reading and flipped back to see if there was a printing error with the page numbers. Not so. It was all in the right order.

All of those I could have kept on reading through if not for the fact that I could not stand to read one more word from the uneducated, backward hero. I get that he had no learnin' and that he don't know what them there big words mean, (*Ahem* sarcasm) but holy hell, reading the way he talks made me feel like I didn't have an education past the second grade. It was way too distracting, and did nothing to make the hero look like, well, a hero!

To Seduce a Texan is not a book I could finish reading. DNF.