Book Reviews: Wings of Love (Cowboy Fever Series #1) & Losses and Gains (Cowboy Fever Series #2 by Karen Wiesner

To Add to Goodreads Click HERE

Wings of Love 

Cowboy Fever Series #1
By:  Karen Wiesner
Published:  September 2011
By:  Whiskey Creek, LLC

Source:  Author

Summary:

When Wings "Mac" Mackenzie falls in love, it's for life, and interior designer Amanda Grant is the woman he has his heart set on. When he asked her to move in with him at his fixer-upper ranch in Fever, Texas--the dinky little cattle town he and his brother grew up in—he'd expected to be there with her often. Unfortunately, as co-owner of a family-owned engineering firm, Mac finds himself spending more time than ever overseeing projects after his younger brother becomes a family man. With Amanda making the house a home for them, he struggles to get his business matters in hand so he can settle down with her, the way he longs to. An on-the-job injury puts his life in perspective. Eager to become a full-time rancher, he returns home at Christmas-time, ready to make the ultimate commitment to Amanda—only to find her long gone.

My Take on this Journey:

The main character in this novella is "Mac" Mackenzie, a gorgeous hunk of a man, baby blue eyes, a well respected and upstanding man in his small town community of Fever, Texas.  Mac and his brother, Kiowa, were brought up in this small cattle town by their loving parents.  When their parents died, it was just the two of them.  Together these two brothers start their own Mackenzie Environment & Infrastructure, which they started after college. Mac is totally enveloped in his business, and it has always been his first priority in life.  He has passed up love a few times because of his business. 


Over a twelve year span of it always being the wrong time and being with the wrong person, Mac has been infatuated with Amanda Grant, and visa versa, and never been open to get together with one another.  Amanda, (Mandy) Grant was a slight of a woman with generous curves, and  whiskey brown eyes.  She was a business owner, who had her own Interior Design Business, and her father, Pierce, was the owner of a Wastewater Treatment Operations business that interacted with Mac's company.  Pierce, over the 12 years, invited Mac to many social's, trying to get him together with his daughter, covertly. Mandy made her first million by the time she was 20.  Mandy and Pierce were known to be a family of humanitarians.  Mandy had a partner named Ashley that held down the business while she decided to leave with Mac to fix up his house in Fever, Texas, hoping against hope that it would end in a long term relationship once and for all.


Mac and  Mandy had 6 wonderful days and nights together before he was  called away on business to fix a problem.  It ended up taking a bad turn, and Mac was there longer than he expected, months, with only one call a week to Mandy. The problem with Mac was that he was wonderful in person, but gun shy over the phone.  He was awkward, and never said what he was really feeling. This led to Mandy questioning whether she had misread Macs' feelings, and he only wanted her to redecorate his home instead of  making a home together.  This novella was made up of a calamity of errors.  This was about two people madly in love, misreading the signals, and running into the patterns of their past relationships that had gone wrong.


This was a neat short novella with sentiment from the past, sadness, long lost love, with a feel of a throw back relationship.  I loved the secondary characters, especially Mama May, Maggie May, and Shell. They made this novella three-dimensional.  Mac was a sweet character, with a lot of love, and compassion, but he had put the horse before the carriage one too many times before in his relationships, so he was being overly careful.  Amanda was a strong willed woman, with a lovely grace, and spark about her.  She was a looking for the right man, but was tired of always ending up with the wrong  man, and wasn't going to tolerate  anything less than 100%.  This time she wanted the words or nothing at all.


The characters  were endearing, and I grew fond of them.  I give Wings of Love 3 1/2 Longing to Love, Feverish, Serendipitous Stars!!!

Losses and Gains 

Cowboy Fever Series #2

By:  Karen Wiesner
Published:  May 15, 2012
By:  Whiskey Creek, LLC
Source:  Author

Summary:

Lance Olsen, Triple Aces Ranch co-owner, lost his wife Colleen and their two-year-old son in a fire four years ago. Colleen became the love of his life and he can’t imagine ever getting over what they shared enough to move on and start again. At this point in his continued grief, the ranch is all that matters to him. He believes his heart is dead to him.

Colleen’s baby sister, Janaya Gaines, left the ranch right out high school to pursue a different life—and to forget. Though she’d come home for her sister and nephew's funerals, she’d been too devastated to stay long...or to ever imagine coming home again. All her life, her sister had gotten everything she’d set her mind to, everything Janaya had wanted. Instead of competing and giving in to her resentment, Janaya left to find a life and maybe love of her own. But no one could ever replace Lance Olsen in her heart.

When she comes home, accepting that the life she’s tried to build for herself has been a matter of mostly losses and few gains, she doesn’t expect Lance’s anger at her selfishness in staying away, nor does she anticipate that the animosity between them could ever stir the embers of true love.

My Take on this Journey:

Janaya Gaines and Lance Olsen grew up together in the small cooperative cattle town in Fever, Texas.  Lance's mother died in a horse back riding accident, and his father never got over it.  There were secrets about his family life that Lance would  rather take to the grave than let anyone else find out.  Lance never understood, and couldn't forgive his father for what happened behind closed doors. Lance and Janaya spent one wonderful summer together, fell in love, and hid from probing eyes.

Janaya was afraid that her only sister, the manipulative Colleen, might find out and take Lance away from her.  Everything had always been a competition in their lives since Janaya could remember.  Her older sister Colleen had quite a reputation for herself around the small town, and whatever Janaya had, Colleen wanted and got, at any price.  Janaya, on the other hand, was a good girl, who wanted marriage before going to bed with a man.  Janaya and Lance planned secretly to run off and elope, but before they could, Colleen found out and threatened her sister to leave Lance or she would tell the whole town his dreaded secret that Lance had been hiding his whole life.  Janaya couldn't allow Lance to get hurt, so she does the only thing she can do, she lied to the man she loved so dearly.  She told him she wanted to pursue her singing career.  Lance believed her and was crushed. 

Janaya was his heart and soul, and he was completely shattered and couldn't understand the complete change in the girl of his dreams.  Janaya left town for a career in Nashville, though her heart was broken, and all she wanted was her beloved Lance.  When she got word that Lance and Colleen had married, she began a relationship with a guy in her band.  Colleen had been the one that wanted a singing career, and if she was going to take Janaya's dream, then Janaya would take hers.

For fifteen  years, Janaya didn't return to fever.  Janaya has preconceived notions about her parents love for her also, and that kept her away also.  Even when her nephew Gavin was born, to Lance and Colleen, she could not bring herself to go see the son that should  have been theirs together.  A disaster happened that brought Janaya back to Fever, but she fled as quickly as she came.  Lance was beside himself, and was so distraught and angered with her quick departure, that he knew he'd never forgive her.  Throughout the story, Janaya had a best friend, Byron, who was metrosexual.  He helped her think through all her problems, and it made her have better decisions.  Byron learned things about himself through the help of Janaya also.  She was a great character, loving and kind to everyone.


I really enjoyed this novella.  A few of  the characters are misunderstood, and their dramas were each played out with interesting storytelling on the part of Ms. Wiesner.  I liked the idea that each of the novellas are about the same small town in Fever, Texas, and that all of the characters encountered in the novellas each have their own story.  Yet, they are all intertwined.

I give Losses and Gaines, by Karen Wiesner 4 Long Lost Love, Brightly Shining Stars in Your Eyes, Redeeming, Loyal, Stars!!!

Purchase At:

Amazon | Kindle | Barnes and Noble | Kobo

About the Author:

Karen Wiesner is an accomplished author with 100 titles published in the past 15 years, which have been nominated for and/or won 125 awards, and 37 more releases contracted for spanning many categories and formats.

Website | Goodreads 

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway