A review by andipants
Breathless by Beverly Jenkins

3.0

I liked this one better than the first in the series. There were fewer plotlines, so it felt more focused, and the secondary characters felt more believable, and less like cardboard cutouts in an idyllic fantasyland. I particularly liked Kent and Portia and their relationship; they felt like realistic, reasonable people, and their relationship felt believable and mature, with no contrived conflict or petty nonsense thrown in just to create tension. The conflict in the story was mostly external, which was fine with me. I also liked the family relationships portrayed here, especially the one between Portia and Regan (and I'm definitely looking forward to Regan's story!).

There were still some definite faults, mostly plot-related. The fate of the guy who killed the ranch hands was decidedly anticlimactic, and the part at the end where

Spoiler

Portia gets kidnapped

came out of the blue and then was resolved in a snap; it should have been expanded enough to create actual tension or cut entirely. There were also some definite trappings of the Wallpaper Historical here (was mandatory marriage counseling really a thing in the Old West? Really?), although the text was sprinkled through with references to actual historical events and social movements, which I definitely appreciated.

Overall, despite the flaws, I found this one a solid entry, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.