Call #: PB ROMANCE MILLER
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Montana is a apparently the official state of library romance, since both The Librarian's Secret Scandal AND this book are set there. The Montana Creeds series follows three Creed brothers: Logan, Taylor and Dylan, as they learn to tame their wild Creed ways and settle down. In this book, we follow middle brother Dylan. Once a hard-partying rodeo cowboy, Dylan is now trying to take care of his two year daughter Bonnie after her equally wild mother left her is his truck one night. Dylan returns to home to Stillwater Springs to ask his lawyer brother Logan for help gaining sole custody of Bonnie. However, once in town, he starts to develop feelings again for the town librarian, Kristy Madison, whom he dated before he got into a drunken brawl with his brothers at his dad's funeral. Kristy is still single but really wants a family. She is slightly wary of Dylan, but immediately taken with Bonnie. However, she has a lot on her plate right now, like the fact that they found two bodies in her parents yard and her father might have been the killer!
Praise: I liked the character of Bonnie. She seemed like a realistic two year old troublemaker. I also really liked Dylan's relationship with his brothers. They are a bunch of stubborn, good ol' boys who reminded me a lot of the Riggins' boys on Friday Night Lights- but with a lot more money. In fact, Taylor Kitsch would be my pick to play Dylan in the movie version.
Quibbles: I didn't really like Kristy Madison. I thought it was cool that she was handy and kind of a spinster (though she's only like 30 in the book), but I didn't like how baby-obsessed she was. This plays into one creepy, but supposedly romantic love scene. I also think it's unrealistic that she would be a perfect caretaker to Bonnie right away, despite not having any kids of her own and seeming to be an only child. I mean, we don't even know if she babysat before taking care of Bonnie!
I also though the plot was kind of uneven. It seems like more attention is paid to Dylan's struggles against following in the Creed legacy of being poor parents and jerk husbands, than the murder mystery surrounding Kristy's family. I found the latter plot more interesting, but it never really built up that much suspense. Of course, being a romance book over a mystery, you kind of know how it's going to end anyhow. Overall, this was not my favorite library romance. I'd only recommend it to fans of the series or dreamy cowboys.
