Calico Canyon Review

Mary Connealy has done it again.

Calico Canyon is a book filled with humor, fun and romance. She's taken a time period (late 1860s) and a genre (Texas cowboys) that I'm tired of and made it fresh. Where Petticoat Ranch was filled with girls, this book is filled with holy terrors otherwise known as boys.

Grace Calhoun has run from Chicago to Texas ranch country to escape an abusive adoptive father. She settles in Mosqueros to teach school, but thanks to five young boys and their boorish father loses her position. Daniel Reeves thinks life is good. He has a beautiful ranch and five healthy boys. So what if they live in a cave? Then the school teacher he got fired ends up in his wagon and at his ranch. Next thing he knows, the parson has married them.

Grace and Daniel are a fun study in contrasts. She thinks he works the boys too hard; he thinks the harder he works them the more likely they'll sleep at night. She's quiet and refined; the men of the house are loud and obnoxious. Both have serious issues in their pasts that they must deal with now that they're stuck together.

Mary's writing hits just the right humor note...she keeps me laughing without going over the top. I also couldn't wait to return to the book each time. The story and characters kept tugging me back. A delightful story!

Here's more about the book:

Let yourself be swept away by this fast-paced romance, featuring Grace Calhoun, an instructor of reading, writing, and arithmetic, who, in an attempt to escape the clutchs of a relentless pursuer, runs smack dab into even more trouble with the 6R's - widower Daniel Reeves, along with his five rowdy sons. When a marriage is forced upon this hapless pair - two people who couldn't dislike each other more - an avalanche isn't the only potential danger lurking amid the shadows of Calico Canyon. Will they make it out alive? Or end up killing each other in the process?

Running from her Abusive foster-father, a man intent on revenge, the prim and perfectly proper Grace Calhoun takes on the job of schoolmarm in Mosqueros, Texas.

As if being a wanted woman isn't bad enough, Grace has her hands full with the five rowdy and rambunctious Reeves boys─tough Texan tormenters who seem intent on making her life miserable. When, in an attempt to escape from the clutches of her pursuer, Grace is forced to marry widower Daniel Reeves, father of the miniature monsters, she thinks things couldn't get any worse. Or could they?

Daniel Reeves, happy in his all-male world, is doing the best he can, raising his five boys─rascals, each and every one. Since his wife's death in childbirth, Daniel has been determined never to risk marriage again.

When God throws Grace and Danielt together─two people who couldn't detest each other more─the trouble is only beginning.

Will this hapless pair find the courage to face life together in the isolated Calico Canyon? Or are their differences too broad a chasm to bridge?

If you would like to read the first chapter go HERE.