Callie's Cowboy by karen leabo
3 STARS

Callie's Cowboy is a Loveswept classic romance. Thier are a lot of love scenes in this book. It was a good plot but I really could not connect with the hero.
Callie and two other high school friends get thier fortunes told by a gypsie who is at thier carnaval fundraiser. Then she gives them a token to rember it. Then disappears.
Callie Calloway had just broken up with her boyfriend and she was not going to marry a cowboy. Later when her boyfriend Sam Sanger asked her to marry and move to his ranch she turns him down.
Callie and Sam had many break ups after he asked her to marry him last he married someone else and has a little girl. His wife left him his daughter and got a divorce.
Callie is now editor of thier home town newspaper and has a good relationship with the police and town except her boss.
Sam now divorced came home for his father's funeral. He killed himself with a shotgun.
Sam is still angry with Callie from when she refused to marry him years ago.
Sam's mother invited Callie to dinner. She always wanted them to marry. Even sent Callies articles to him while he was still married.
She does not believe her husband killed himself and asked Callie to find out. Something about it bugs Callie and she talks to the Policeman she went to high school who first got to the scene. He takes Callie's questions seriously and next day called her back.
The cop who has the case is not satisfied with the ruling and they want Callie to let
them know if she finds out anything they should know about since she is close to the family.
Sam wants Callie to stop snooping into his fathers death. He does not want anymore stories on his father. He feels for Callie still a lot of anger but can't get her off his mind. They fight a lot but fall in bed together.
Callie finds more information and calls her friend the cop. She tells Sam that the cops are still wanting more information about his father. Sam again wants Callie to let it go.
Callie is fired from her job and agrees to go and see Sam's ranch with his mother.
I just had a hard time liking Sam's attidude to his dad's death. His anger with Callie.
his marrying someone he did not love.
Callie sticks to what she believes to be right. She is not going to let a murder get away if it is murder. She risks her life to save someone else.
The fortune teller just seems unnessary but maybe if I had read the other two stories it would have made more sense.
I was given this ebook to read in exchange of honest review from Netgalley.
August 13, 2012 PUB.Random House Publishing Group Imprint Loveswept ( )

Callie’s Cowboy is a re-issue of Karen Leabo’s book from 1996. However, I’ve never read anything by Karen before, so this book is new to me.

I got more than what I was looking for with this book. Instead of being just a straight forward contemporary romance, it’s a contemporary romance with a little mini-suspense mixed in.

The Prologue sets up this three part Brides of Destiny series. The series involves three high school best friends, Callie Calloway, Lana Walsh, and Millicent Whitney. During their senior year in high school at the spring carnival, the three girls are told their future, by a Fortune-Teller named Theodora. Theodora gives the girls souvenir mementos from their fortune, as a way for them to remember. Callie is given a plastic key chain in the shape of a cowboy boot. Lana is given a toy police badge. Millicent is given a small brown medicine bottle. This magical encounter is basically forgotten in the passing years.

The story takes place in Destiny, Texas. Eight years after high school sweethearts, Sam Sanger and Callie Calloway have broken up. Sam runs a family ranch called Roundrock in Babcock, Nevada. Callie is editor of the hometown newspaper, The Daily Record. In the eight years since their breakup, both Sam and Callie have gone on to live their lives. But they never stopped loving each other and wondering what if.

The story starts with the funeral of Johnny Sanger, Sam’s father. From the moment Sam and Callie see another sparks fly, some good and some bad. Throughout the story you have Beverly, Sam’s mother, trying to subtly play matchmaker and not so subtly being the peacekeeper.

Even after Sam and Callie broke up, Callie remained very close to Beverly. So, when Beverly asks Callie to help her, by looking into something, Callie agrees to do so. As if more tension is needed between Sam and Callie, Callie’s questioning of things rubs Sam the wrong way. What unfolds surprises Callie herself, and possibly the whole town.

The same issues which broke up Sam and Callie eight years previously are still the same issues which could keep them apart now. However in eight years people grow older and learn what’s really important.
I found my first book by Karen Leabo to be an enjoyable read. I’m looking forward to the remaining books in this series. ( )