Reviews

The Lawman by Lily Graison

jailynnw_jamie's review against another edition

4.0

Morgan and Abigail

This is the first book in the series, but the second one I have read. I enjoyed Morgan and Abigail but I think Noah and Keri are still my favorite couple as of right now. Morgan was, ironically, more difficult for me to love than Noah, who was seriously a grinch and lived up to the “you’re a mean one, Mr Grinch”, but Noah’s brokenness made him an endearing character. Morgan was a little less so. But as the book moved on, I found myself liking him more and more. I felt the same about Abigail and Keri. Still I have to give credit, I really love this author’s writing. I will definitely be reading more of this series and can’t wait to do so.

derbylea's review against another edition

2.0

Silly. The kind of romance that makes people roll their eyes when you say you like romance.

ktbeth143's review

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I’m glad I got this free during Stuff-Your-Kindle-Day because now that I’ve read it, I have been sorely disappointed in myself for spending money on it.

Read it in less than 90 minutes. It’s a short, quick read, and I think that’s its biggest problem. The premise is interesting, but the execution is awful. There is no character development, no relationship building, and very little exposition mainly because there isn’t any time for it. It feels like this was a 120-page story idea submission. I really wish the author had taken more time to flesh things out. 

Abigail shows up in Willow Creek searching for a husband, starts a bar fight, gets thrown in jail and because of lust, desperation and scheming old ladies, ends up married to the Marshal. Which would have made it a marriage of convenience plot, except it’s not. Abigail won’t tell her new husband why she insists on being married. And Morgan literally only agrees to marry her because they had s*x the night before and it wasn’t bad. And then all of a sudden, Abigail’s pregnant and runs away because her criminal ex shows up. Marshal goes after her and says something like “you didn’t need to run, I’ll always protect you” which would have been okay if he had been written as some upstanding guy (he’s not) or if there had been some relationship development between them (there isn’t). When he first meets her at the saloon it’s only because he went there to pay for some attention from the saloon girls. And when he asks her about the bar fight, he chooses to arrest her because “it was her fault” even though she was only defending herself against a saloon patron who was literally trying to assault her and wouldn’t take a no for an answer. (Later, he concedes, but not out loud, that man deserved the slap Abigail gave him, but still sees the bar fight as at least partially her fault cause it never would have happened if she hadn’t ignored the “no women allowed” sign). 

And then there’s the ending. Abigail’s criminal ex shoots Morgan and leaves him for dead and yet somehow Morgan still catches up to him AND has the strength to save Abigail from the guy? It doesn’t logically make sense.

If you decide not to read this, you won’t be missing out on anything. 

caslater83's review

4.0

My goodness...this was a little bit of an exciting read. She's hiding somethng and the lawman knows something's up. Excellent character development. There's romance, a little drama, and some suspense. As it was only 120 pages on my Kindle, I'm surprised that the author didn't add more to the story! It seemed that I finished this way too fast.

argentbradamante's review

lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

allingoodtime's review

3.0

I have been reading a lot of free Kindle books lately, hence the plethora of romance novels I've been reviewing. I have come across a wide gamut of books in this way. Everything from garbage to good to would be great with an editor's help to awesome in every way. Sometimes I'm even lucky enough to stumble on a big name author or title for free. So I can't really complain...but I'm going to anyway.

I understand self publishing, what I don't understand is not having your friends or family read what you've written before self publishing. It can really make all the difference in the world. Even if they don't know much about writing, there are little things they may catch that the writer will not since they know what it's supposed to say and may skim over the errors.

That being said, this book would have gotten 4 stars if there had been anyone looking behind the author and fixing some mistakes. I really enjoyed the story and thought it was great to have a heroine in the old west not be so prim and proper and shocked if you looked at her wrong like most authors write. Sadly, the punctuation was off so often throughout this book that it pulled me out of the story. I am a fairly fast reader and find it distracting when I have to go back and read a line a second or even third time to figure out what the author is trying to say - all because a comma is placed incorrectly. We all know that a comma, period, semi-colon, etc. can drastically change the meaning and tone of a sentence.

Other than that, I enjoyed the characters and story telling in this book. I will pick up the next in the series at some point and hope that the author's punctuation got better.