Wildfire: "Boys do things."

Wildfire
1.12: Impressions

This episode felt like filler to me, bridging the gap to the end of the season. Wonder (Wildfire) is getting ready for this big stakes race called the Sand Piper, in which she will meet Townsend Prince (Avatar), Clay Townsend's (Ken Davis) big horse from the pilot. Cindy (Tina Sharp) is still incredibly annoying and bordering on nymphomania, Ashleigh (Kris) is growing increasingly bitter over Cindy's presence, Mike (Matt) can't decide if he wants to be more stupid or less stupid, Dani (Dani) is still singlemindedly hunting down her mother, and Brad (Junior) continues to be awesome.

So, the episode starts up with Cindy hauling a television crew up to Whitebrook Farm (Raintree) so she can show them Wonder and prance around in one of those sateen tank tops, because those are so functional when working around horses. At one point, she also sports a pointless scarf. Ashleigh is not amused, nor is Ian (Pablo). Cindy points out that the television crew is there to spotlight Wonder and Whitebrook for "Horse Racing TV" and everyone grudgingly goes along with this, looking far from enthused by the publicity. If you think that this is going to be a quick shoot, you are so wrong. These people are there for days. Or what seems like days, but probably they are there for days. And Cindy is acting way too perky for everyone and the only person who seems to enjoy it is Mike, because I guess they've been having sex in abandoned basketball courts at night. Or day. You don't know.

Anyway, Todd, Mike's little brother, is back from somewhere, and has been declared fit for strenuous activity because I suppose he had a heart issue when he was a baby. He wants to learn how to ride, and Jean is immediately "the hell? absolutely not!" But because Mike is there, he teaches Todd how to ride anyway. And by teach I mean sort of puts him up there and watches him plod around while declaring "Great! You're a natural!" Face, meet palm. Jean appears soon after and has a complete meltdown, declaring that if Todd is going to ride he is going to wear a better helmet, wear goggles, wear Kevlar...and when Mike breaks in to be shockingly logical about how crazy she's being, Jean is all "does it look like I care about your opinion?!" I only discuss this because Todd winds up being important later. Weirdly enough.

Meanwhile, Brad invites Ashleigh to eat dinner with him, Dani, and his dad, who has appeared for the first time in a while. Ashleigh is at first hesitant, because she can probably see the family dysfunction she's going to have to put up with later, but after Brad appeals to her about how he wants her to be comfortable in his home, they make out more and she accepts. Then she has to go tell Todd how awesome he is because Todd has whipped up a website called wonderrocks.com. Then she makes the silly comment that the only thing more awesome than the website is riding Wonder. Oh, how you know that's going to bite her on the ass.

At the dinner with Brad's family, Clay grills Ashleigh about Wonder while Brad looks at him like he's grown a second head and Dani keeps tapping her knife against her plate until she beats it against the table and starts to scream about her mother, because she apparently can't handle more than one plot point at a time. Then she rushes off, leaving everyone wondering what the hell her problem is. Later she starts to call people frantically, and finally lands someone who she thinks might be her mom. Only to be hung up on. Oh, poor Dani. She's acting out Are You My Mommy? without even realizing it.

Then you have Mike and Cindy over there. Mike is trying to get Cindy to be less sex-crazed and settle for his romantic overtures. Cindy ain't going to settle for this. You know she just wants to have sex in a parking lot somewhere, so that he's wasting his roses and his champagne on her is really very like him. Eventually he tells her that he loves her, and she swats that down pretty quickly. Soon after he finds himself at Bobby's, and Bobby is gambling. Mike, meet your slippery slope.

Then Todd, because he's a boy, and apparently "boys do things" (according to Ian, which is hilarious to me because he's also the same guy who was all "you're wearing a skirt! omg you are so getting raped!"), he dresses up exactly as Jean wants and decides to ride Wonder. His foot slips out of the stirrup (which is how everyone falls in this series) and because he's not a natural at riding he jerks the reins back. Wonder rears and he falls. He winds up in critical condition at the hospital and no one can get ahold of Mike because he's gambling with Bobby. Good going, Mike.

And we are left with Todd in the hospital and shell shocked expressions on everyone's faces. Well, not for Ian, because he doesn't know how to do anything other than stare blankly or be moody.

That is the end of my disc. Look out for more posts over the weekend, as it's too cold to do anything and I have a pile of horse books waiting for me.

The #1 way to get a horse: cry and insult your loved ones.

Moon Shadow
by Chris Platt
Published: 2006

While reading this book, I pondered on what would happen if all of these horse story main characters somehow found themselves locked in, say, a giant, isolated warehouse somewhere. You know what would happen? It would be a blood bath. That's what would happen.

Thirteen-year-old Callie lives with her parents on the edge of the Nevada desert. More than anything, she wants a horse of her own, but knows that her family could never afford it. For a long time Callie has watched a herd of wild mustangs -- sometimes playing, sometimes battling, but always magnificent. The stallion she calls Cloud Dancer and his pregnant palomino mare Moonbeam are her favorites. Callie daydreams that the beautiful Moonbeam will someday -- somehow -- be hers.

But not everyone loves the wild horses. Area ranchers complain that the herds are overpopulated, and in one of the Bureau of Land Management's periodic roundups, Moonbeam is brought in. When the mare dies after giving birth prematurely, Callie devotes herself to caring for Moon Shadow, the orphaned filly. It's touch-and-go as to whether the little mustang will even survive. But if by some miracle Moon Shadow does make it, will Callie be able to adopt the beloved foal?

I am glad to see that Chris Platt escaped the Ashleigh series with her career still intact, considering that it looks like, for some authors, the Thoroughbred series took them down with it. In an unexpected move, Chris Platt bounced from horse racing and breeding to flinging her formulaic rage at the BLM. I feel like this is a stage for some authors. It's only a matter of time before a horse story author moves from racing or horse camp scenarios to focusing their adorable little indignant characters on ripping into the moral fibers of BLM employees who don't appear to give much of a crap, but do invariably lose to the willpower of a tween and her gaggle of influential friends who keep the story moving for her, because she is ultimately powerless.

Callie is one of those adorable, indignant tweens. She's thirteen, horse crazy, and forced to wear homemade clothing because her parents are overgrown hippies who grow their own organic food and appear to live in a junk yard. Callie is upset about this because she does not like tie-dye, and incense makes her a little nauseous. She bravely soldiers on, making due with the family's draft horse and longing for the day she can adopt Moonbeam, her favorite local mustang.

It's summer, and Callie is serving as an equine vet assistant who does plenty of rounds at the local BLM. While they're there, Callie meets two new cowboys, Sam and his son, Justin. If you're waiting for me to say that romantic sparks start to fly between Callie and Justin, I'm sorry to inform you that this doesn't exactly happen. Because another local boy, and rich kid, Luke, likes to pester her in typical displays of male youthfulness, Callie decides that she'd really like to treat Justin like a foreign creature. Because typical tween maleness is seen as unsatisfactory in this book, let it be known that Luke is the antagonist. It's just not really convincing because mainly it's just Luke acting like a boy and Callie completely overreacting to everything he does. Sort of like Christina overreacting to Brad. That sort of overreacting.

So...Moonbeam is driven into the BLM compound and, because the BLM is evil, she is in labor and gives birth prematurely and wins up being put down because the BLM is evil. Did I mention that the BLM is evil? Have I mentioned yet that the "boss man" at the BLM does not like orphan foals? No? Well, he doesn't. And he has pig eyes and is unintelligent. No kidding. So, moving on, Callie has a hissy fit in the middle of the BLM about Moonbeam and immediately names her filly Moon Shadow. Because Callie can't just move into the BLM complex, she is forced to go home. When she comes back, she finds Justin helping out with the filly and has an immediate jealous urge to whine to herself about how she wants the filly to interact with only her. She has to note to herself that people call Moon Shadow her filly, not anyone else's filly, or the government's filly, or whatever. It's HER filly, people. Despite it not being her filly at all. Sam and Justin try to get the filly to bond with a nurse mare, but that doesn't work, so she takes to formula. By this point, Callie is determined to adopt Moon Shadow for herself, because boss man whoever is giving the filly the evil eye.

At this point, Luke's old pony gets loose, so Callie leads it back to Luke's farm and meets Luke's dad, who is very Clay Townsend. He's all ridiculously eager to be nice and happy to help after Callie pours out her emotional vomit about Moon Shadow. He is going to a) give her a job, b) front her the adoption fee, c) transport the filly to her house, d) tell her fantastical stories of the history of mustangs for some reason, despite everyone all ready knowing about the history of mustangs. Callie makes some callous comment about how Luke would never sit and listen to this crap, and it's no wonder, really, because it would bore anyone out of their mind. Only a horse story main character would listen to this. Anyway, Callie practically floats back home to tell her parents her plan, but they are not immediately swayed by its awsomeness and Callie flips out completely, shrieking about how she hates tie-dye and living on a yard with junk in it. Then she realizes that she's a bitch and it's too much. She bursts into tears and, probably because her parents are horrified that she's going to get into their medicine cabinet or start burning herself with their incense sticks, they immediately fall into line and let her adopt the filly.

Callie finds herself at the BLM place soon after her diabolical fit, toting Luke's father's check and the signed paperwork...only to find that the BLM boss guy has somehow figured out her plans and decided to swiftly cut her off at the pass, letting this random city woman (who is unfit to own a horse because she wears spike heels) adopt Moon Shadow. The horror! Clearly the BLM exists solely to piss off tween girls. Callie is paralysed into staring in abject terror at this development, so Sam and Justin do all the legwork and get city lady interested in another mare and foal so city lady changes her mind and, oh bliss!, Callie gets to keep Moon Shadow.

After this, Callie starts to work at Luke's place, trains Moon Shadow to lead, somehow accidentally lets Luke unlock the filly's stall, loses the filly for about two pages, and then decides to enter a halter competition with Moon Shadow when Luke's dad comes to the rescue again and offers her a new halter and all of his daughter's old clothes. At the show, Luke gets instantly pissed off because by this point he's probably realized he's the antagonist and he's not going to win at anything in his life ever again. So he decides, you know, screw it, and goes for the only option available to him: he lets Moon Shadow loose on the grounds. Callie and Luke's sister, Jill, find the filly, clean her up within about five seconds, and then release them into the show ring.

By this point, you're just waiting for me to say that she comes in first in her halter class, right? Well, she doesn't. She comes in fifth. Luke, of course, doesn't place at all, so that's really the most important thing. Sure, the book tries to indicate something about how it's all about the horse and the girl going on to become a fantastic team or something, but you know it's all about the tween girl beating her antagonist and affording to be smug about it later.

It's not a horrible book, but it strictly follows the wild horse/western formula. It also throws in some main character angsting about how everyone thinks pedigreed horses are better than mustangs and how wrong everyone is for having this mindset. And I can't exactly figure out why Sam and Justin like Callie when she mainly spends her time treating Justin like crap, just because he happens to be a boy, which Luke also is. Also, notice how she doesn't exactly do much of anything that moves the plot forward except go into hysterics, which lands her a horse her family can't afford. The big saving grace here is that she comes in fifth, and is happy in fifth. She could have come in first, and made the cliché complete. The bottom line: solid, despite the converging of formulas.

It's amazing what allowances I'll give a book that doesn't reward its character with a justified blue ribbon in the end.

The tale of the Gary Stu and the equine Jesus continues...

Green Jasper
Book 2 of the de Granville Trilogy
by K.M. Grant

If this blog is indicative of anything, it's that I'm a glutton for punishment. After reading Blood Red Horse, I had to eventually land on its sequel, Green Jasper. The first book was a dragging, politically correct, saga mixing a horse story up with the Crusades. This didn't end well. In fact, it was pretty ridiculous. Green Jasper is little better in terms of character development, but Will is still a freakish Gary Stu, Hosanna is still the equine vision of perfection, and those that are not perfect are horribly flawed, consistently wrong, or EVIL.

Is it foolish to think that one boy and a blood red horse can save a fair maiden and the throne of England?

Will and Gavin de Granville have come back from the crusade older, braver, and definitely wiser.

Ellie has been longing for their return. But they’ve changed. And home is almost as dangerous as the war they’ve just left.

The king is missing. The country is in turmoil. And some men would do anything for power. What will two brothers risk for the woman they both love and the king they have both sworn to protect and serve? In the second book of the de Granville trilogy, Will and Gavin find their family – and all of England – in serious peril.

While it is my opinion that K.M. Grant has some work to do, characterization wise, she does do two things that receive high praise from me in Green Jasper: her plot is less sprawling, and Will is forced to contain his perfection to a dungeon for the majority of this book. Therefore everything he did was not only perfect, it was rather pointless to spend my time on, so I could skim over him rather easily and get back to Gavin, who continues to be awesome.

It is Valentine's Day, 1193. Gavin and Ellie are going to get married, but there is underlying tension because Ellie doesn't really realize that she's in love with him and Gavin is convinced that she's in love with Will, and Will is too busy paying attention to his horse to realize that he's in love with Ellie. It's one of those evil love triangles in which you just want to slap them all. Actually, I want to slap Will all the time, which is why I was so happy to discover how long he spends in the aforementioned dungeon. Anyway, de Scabious, the evil guy from the first book, crashes the wedding and steals Ellie, ripping the tension open between the two brothers. Will wants to go after de Scabious immediately and Gavin wants to wait until they know for sure if Richard is dead or alive or what. The important thing to remember is that John is around, trying to convince the country that Richard is dead so he can be crowned king in his place.

Will, because he is thankfully sort of stupid in this book, although his stupidity is painted as perfection, irritatingly, decides to go after Ellie with his squire, completely underestimating de Scabious's position, and gets himself captured almost immediately. This is Will's one fault: impatience. It's really too bad it never got him killed. It really should have, looking back on it. Gavin stays back at the castle, waiting for his moment to be awesome while his brother wanders around in a prison cell and has these conversations with a little boy that was probably important, leading to his escape, only I obviously don't care about Will, so I ignored all of that.

Meanwhile, Kamil is back, bringing a letter to England from Richard, conveniently enough. Kamil eventually comes across Gavin, gives him the seal in exchange for Hosanna, and then they go rescue Ellie and Will, who at that point has managed to do something that was probably important, only obviously I was trying to ignore his presence. Gavin and Kamil simply walk right into de Scabious's lair, and eventually Ellie loses it and smacks de Scabious around, so he loses it and goes to stab her, and Gavin, because he's awesome, shoves her out of the way and is killed. Ellie kisses him before he dies and realizes she's in love with him right when Will, with his irritating perfection, rides in and saves the day. Blah blah blah. The book ends with Ellie telling Will she's going to Germany to deliver the ransom for the king with him, whether he likes it or not, and then she goes over to sit at Gavin's grave and tells it that Gavin has her faith, which she'll probably get over by the next book, when mutual perfection means she'll have to marry Will and bear his ridiculously perfect children.

So now that Gavin is dead, I am less than eager to move on to the last book of this trilogy, Blaze of Silver. I can only hope that Gavin's awesomeness transfers to Kamil, because Will and Hosanna, who continues to be everyone's equine Jesus, do not amuse me.

Wildfire: In which we learn that female friends can't be trusted.

Wildfire
1.11: Tina Sharp

In this episode, Wildfire channels every horse story involving a typical main character pushing a basic injury in order to ride sooner rather than later. Only Wildfire ups the ante, pushing their main character onto the horse, has her exercise this horse, and then has her lobby ruthlessly for a jockey job, all while still wearing a plaster cast she could knock someone unconscious with.

In the previous episode, Ashleigh broke her arm when she slipped off the horse she was riding. In this episode, it's only a few days later (probably) and Mike is helping her put on a sweater while she winces from the pain. Call me crazy, but if her arm hurts this much after wrangling an article of clothing, there's little chance in hell she's riding a horse. Ah, but then I guess I'm underestimating the horse story main character. Mike, typically, makes some wise crack about how he must be better at taking sweaters off (oh, please, shut up) and thankfully Brad comes along to save us from Mike's horrible attempt at humor. Mike takes a moment to invite Brad to see this reggae band, and Brad tries to subtly tell him he can't because he's going on a date. Mike makes a complete fool out of himself before Brad can tell him: "Dude, it's with Ashleigh." While she's right there, somehow completely missing this entire conversation. Mike beats a hasty path out of Ashleigh's trailer.

Meanwhile, Cindy has arrived at Whitebrook in order to be loud and annoying while Ashleigh is out of commission. Although she's not totally out of commission, because she's riding Wonder and pretending like her arm isn't hurting in order to plead for a chance to ride the filly in a race. Ian, however, has other ideas and intends to haul in this new jockey to try out the horse, much to Ashleigh's horror. Then you have Cindy over there, insisting that the only way to get through the pain is to "control" it using prescription pain killers. Ashleigh is not exactly willing to do this, insisting that aspirin is enough, only to have Cindy shove the pills at her anyway. Then Cindy romps over to Casa Reese and meets Mike, being all disturbingly interested in him despite his status as a minor. Cindy wants to go out, and because Ashleigh and Brad are going out without him, Mike decides to take Cindy to dinner. Naturally they wind up having sex in Mike's car, while Ashleigh and Brad get take out and presumably eat dinner in a field somewhere, which is too suspiciously Thoroughbred series. Well, not the sex in the car part. Obviously.

Secondary to all of this is Dani's ongoing attempt to locate her missing mother. She thinks she's found her, although I don't know how she managed this, and is stunned when she finds out that this person is Latina. Dani's dad always said that her mother was "Spanish" and this opens up a new rift between her and Ethan, who is still here, being supportive only until he has to play some race card on top of Dani's attempt to find her mom, confusing her into trying to accept that she might be biracial when there is absolutely no proof that she actually is.

Back at Casa Reese, Ashleigh convinces Ian and Jean to give her a chance to prove that she can be Wonder's jockey, so Ian tells her that if she can beat the other jock's time he'll give her some serious consideration. Ashleigh manages this after breaking down and taking the pills Cindy gives her. During this, Cindy is trying to be friendly with Ashleigh because she a) has no female friends and apparently would really like one and b) is with men all the time, and is sick of it. So Cindy pretty much sticks herself in Ashleigh's trailer and reads magazines and is annoying, but at least she's not drinking or has turned the trailer into a brothel, so for right now Ashleigh doesn't have much to worry about.

Only then Ian and Jean decide not to put Ashleigh on Wonder for the upcoming race. Instead they're going to put Cindy up on the filly, and Ashleigh predictably feels betrayed. She confronts Cindy, suggesting that "maybe there's a reason" Cindy has no female friends. It's probably because Cindy's a bitch and likes to stab people in the back for her own personal gain, but Ashleigh leaves that unsaid and storms off to brood about this development after stating she isn't going to the race. She would much prefer to brood.

Meanwhile, Mike has fallen in with Cindy. Dani calls him "Mr. Tina Sharp," which is a hilariously fitting role for him. Mike has fallen from manly tracker to boy toy in the space of a few weeks, which I can't say wasn't going to happen, because it really was. Speaking of Dani, she goes to wake up Brad, insisting that they might be biracial. Brad's all "that's ridiculous because I remember our mom and she's not biracial." Dani puts down his own memories, so he has to get up and retrieve the only photo he has of their mother, who is indeed not Latina. Then they have what I will admit was a touching conversation about their reality and what they could have expected from a loving mom. I am really liking these Dani and Brad moments right now, because they manage to lift the show up whenever Mike comes in and does something so damningly stupid I have to wonder how he continues as a main character.

At Casa Reese, Jean visits with Ashleigh and gives her the motivational speech about growing up and falling off and getting back on and such. Ashleigh wants to be experienced, but she just isn't, so she'll have to live with that for right now. She tells Ashleigh she's going to the damn race, and Ashleigh does wind up going to the race because she's a horse story main character. Of course she's going to the race. Although in an unexpected move, she tells off Cindy and basically calls her on being a self-absorbed bitch before going to watch the race in the solitude of some room in the backside. Wonder and Cindy win, giving Ashleigh a brief moment of joy before they cut to an interview of Cindy talking about how she found Wonder in some little known farm and she just had to be a part of things, effectively destroying Ashleigh's moment of happiness. This leads to her decision to throw away the pills Cindy gave her, putting her back on the path of moral righteousness and making her less likely to becoming a pill popping jockey/whore later on.

Next time on Wildfire, Cindy brings a TV crew to Whitebrook Farm, causing havoc and hurt feelings, most likely.

High Stakes, Part 2: Loins as a sexual euphemism must stop.

High Stakes
by Lisa Jackson
Published: 2008

Every so often I run into a romance novel I can't help liking, despite factors that should make it abhorrent to me on a basic level. I didn't like the first book in this two in one, so I didn't expect to find the second one any better. But, you know, it is better, even if the main character is named Tiffany (a name I just cannot take seriously). Let's get started.

DEVIL'S GAMBIT

Tiffany Rhodes's horse farm was in trouble long before she met Zane Sheridan, a breeder with a shady reputation. Yet she couldn't help but feel relieved when Zane offered to buy her out. Though Tiffany didn't trust him, she was drawn to him like a magnet. What did this mysterious man want from her...and why was he using a gambit with her heart?

This is another one published in 1984, but it's not as obvious. Tiffany is twenty-five and a widow. Zane is 36 and Irish. Thankfully, this book does not take place in Ireland, because I'm still pretty burned out on Ireland and the Irish in general. However, Zane's Irishness isn't in your face, in that no one talks about fairies for the entirety of the book. I have a feeling it's the first romance involving the Irish I've read for this blog where fairies didn't figure prominently. Yes, I am serious when I say that.

Anyhoo, Zane may not talk about fairies, but he is all hyped up on revenge. Apparently, long ago, back when he was much more trusting, Ellory Rhodes (Tiffany's dead husband) hustled him out of 200 grand. Ellory ran off and bought the Rhodes Breeding Farm with this money, leaving Zane to build himself back up the honest way so he could buy another farm in Ireland. Ellory got married to Tiffany, had some affair with this Stasia person on the side, and then died in a trailer accident that also killed the farm's Kentucky Derby hopeful, Devil's Gambit.

Since Zane is on a revenge kick, and since his original target died, he decides to act out this scenario on Tiffany. But when he gets to the farm he discovers that Tiffany is not a bitch, making his attempts to buy the farm and freak Tiffany out with his news that Devil's Gambit is not, in fact, dead, less satisfying. Add to this the farm's problems with a bunch of mares that are giving birth to dead or dying foals, and Tiffany has way more than she can handle. Zane, being Irish and a romance novel anti-hero (if that's possible?), decides to help her out with one of the foaling mares, and by the time the dead foal is born it's late and he has to spend the night. Tiffany is distraught, a perfect time for him to comfort her with sex, only this does not happen. I was confused by this development, but then I was able to rest assured when he declared he had to stay over for the night and, instead of sleeping in the guest room like he was supposed to, he pulls an Edward Cullen and decides to watch Tiffany sleep.

Of course, Zane is not a vampire with a sleep disorder, so he falls asleep in his chair and wakes up to a pissed off Tiffany. Around this point they discover their mutual attraction for each other and they have to separately muse to themselves about this astonishing, yet obviously predictable fact. Also around this point, Zane's, um, attraction to Tiffany happens to occur in his loins. This is another word that I hate. Just like the words slumber, Kevin and Steve. In this case loins pops up at least ten times. Maybe more. Loins are stirring and having conniptions all over the place, and it disturbed me greatly. I have a feeling this is because I immediately think of pork loin, and by the time I apply that word to a man and his issues I've already thought of pork and then I'm just disgusted. Sexy thoughts and loins just should not mix. Ever.

So Zane tells Tiffany his theory: that Ellory wanted to cash in on Devil's Gambit's insurance (for some reason) so he faked the crash (maybe he died, maybe he didn't) and then they shipped the horse to Ireland, where he took the place of another horse called King's Ransom and began to breed him under that horse's name. For some reason I can't remember, I admit. Maybe there was no reason. Anyway, Tiffany thinks all of this is insane, but she's got this whole foal problem to think about and then, before you know it, they're wrestling around on the floor only to stop because Zane is all "you'll hate me later" blah blah blah. Then he trots out of the house and goes on this manhunt for his ex-wife, Stasia, Ellory's girlfriend.

Are you confused yet? I almost am. Anyway, Zane comes back after discovering Stasia's hiding place. She tells him everything, including the fact that Ellory is indeed dead and that Devil's Gambit is alive and serving stud duty for this King's Ransom horse. Somehow. By this point, Tiffany has already seen Ellory's brother, Dustin, who just happens to own the farm that owns King's Ransom. Zane comes back, finally has sex with Tiffany out in the woods somewhere, and then they nearly get run over by the farm's famous stallion, who is off romping around. It comes out later that Dustin let the stallion out, and then everyone remembers that Dustin was on the farm when the mares were bred, explaining why their foals died. They presume he injected them with something or another, however that works I don't know.

Eventually it comes down to Dustin freaking out, Zane punching Dustin, Dustin being taken away, and Zane and Tiffany having their basic happy ending.

So I don't know. It held my attention, which is a plus. Zane calling Tiffany a "sweet lady" was way too much, not to mention the repeated mentions of Zane's loins was not so great. Ugh, it still creeps me out now. Then there's the suspense plotline regarding the horse, and while it might be pretty improbable, I still have to give it points for keeping me interested. And it gets points for not having the male character support and comfort the exhausted/traumatized female character with spontaneous and unsafe sex. Not to say the rest of it was safe, because rest assured it wasn't, but you know. Whatever.

High Stakes, Part 1: Even I had the incredible urge to shake Becca. I admit it.

High Stakes
by Lisa Jackson
Published: 2008

Harlequin calls this genre "contemporary suspense" and I'm not quite sure what that means, considering High Stakes is a two in one reprint of novels published in the mid-eighties. The suspense part I get, because once a gun pops up in a romance novel it's suddenly called suspense, even if the gun is never used and, in this instance, when it does pop up the main character decides he'd rather break out the whiskey than pursue the culprit. I will admit that I thought this was not only hilarious, but unusually brilliant for a romance novel.

Since this is a two in one novel, I'm going to split this up into two posts. Because I know how we all like our romance novels around here (or maybe not...whatever).

Gypsy Wind
by Lisa Jackson
Published: 1984

Passions run high in horse-racing circles, but thoroughbred breeder Becca Peters keeps a tight rein on her emotions. Except when it comes to Brig Chambers. Six years after he shattered their relationship with dangerous accusations, he's back, stirring up trouble...and undeniable heat.

I love this summary, because it's just so wrong. The book starts off with Becca Peters freaking out and dropping her coffee cup, which shatters into a gazillion pieces and gets coffee everywhere. Then she knocks all of these papers into the spilled coffee. And then she starts moaning incoherently at her quaint little black and white television. A tight rein on her emotions indeed.

Here's the deal: Jason Chambers, an oil tycoon, crashed his private plane. Becca happens to know him because he spawned Brig Chambers, the guy she used to have sex with on some sort of consistent basis. She is upset because she thinks Brig might be on the plane. There are rumors of passengers, and of course all of them are deeply bruised, possibly crispy corpses now. So Becca is having a major episode in front of her television as she ponders the possibilities of Brig's hypothetical death. Then her brother walks in and is all "hell yeah!" about it because Becca borrowed $50,000 from Jason in order to breed this filly, Gypsy Wind.

Anyway, because this is 1984, Becca has to wait until the next day so she can rush out and read the newspaper and crumple to the ground when she sees Brig's photo in the newspaper. He is alive! Now Becca can cry some more and rub herself against the newspaper, totally keeping her emotions in check as she does this. I'm sure. Because she can't contain herself any longer, Becca decides that she is going to fly to Denver and confront Brig about this $50,000 she owes his dead father, because it is so important. Maybe it's just me, but if you're the owner of a massive oil company, isn't $50,000 a paltry sum? In the long run, who really cares? But Becca cares so much that she decides she's not even going to attempt to get ahold of Brig at the company, and instead goes straight for the jugular. She actually drives out to his cabin in the woods, where I suppose she just hopes he'll be, because that was really random, actually. Of course, he's there, and he's getting drunk because of the stress, you understand.

She shows up and he immediately drags her to the bedroom, where they can immediately proceed with the sex, despite not having seen each other in six years. They also have more than enough baggage, so this is sudden. And in the middle of it all he actually wonders why his head is so fuzzy, and I think "it's probably because you drank three rather large glasses of scotch, you moron."

So they have sex and wake up the next morning to hang overs and Brig's sudden desire to "shake sense into" Becca. There's a lot of this desire to "shake" her, which I also find fascinating. Why do romance novels romanticize this sort of violence? I mean, Becca isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, clearly, but I don't think this justifies frustrated shaking. Of course, Becca keeps coming back for more. Then they drag the past up so they can stare at their baggage some more.

You see, long ago, Becca bred herself a filly. It was the most amazing filly there ever was, or ever will be, but unfortunately she's got a problem: she's sort of the shittiest filly there ever was, or ever will be. Naturally, that's a huge defect, but Becca is not going to be deterred. She's going to take this giant ass horse with legs the size and strength of tiny needles and race her into the ground! Brilliant! No, seriously. Eventually, she meets Brig because he happens to be in the racing scene. Her brother, Dean, wants to see if Brig wants to buy the horse, but when Becca discovers this she puts a halt to plans of buying Lady. Obviously at this point I wonder why they even bothered to drive the three hours to her farm from a yacht to look at this horse at two in the morning. What did you THINK he wanted to see the horse for, Becca? See, she's kind of a dim bulb. Anyway. Then they have sex. And Becca decides she's in love with him afterward, because five hours and a one night stand is all it takes to fall in love.

So they continue on in this manner for a while until the Ruffian vs. Foolish Pleasure plot rears its ugly head. Basically, Brig's colt is awesome and fantastic. Becca's filly is also awesome and fantastic, besides being genetically flawed and basically waiting to crumple to the dirt because her legs suck...you know, that's obviously going to be a problem. So someone somewhere decides a match race is in order and Lady totally fails and breaks down and they discover that she'd been given a dose of illegal steroids that would have disqualified her had she not been inherently unsound. Oh, the drama. The drama.

Back in the present, the two essentially accuse each other of drugging the horse. And then Brig discovers that Becca has gone off the deep end and petulantly bred a full sister to Lady. He's all "what the hell is wrong with you?" And she's all "I am so right and you are so wrong and you probably drugged Lady but I love you and let's have sex again." But they do not have sex. No, Brig overcomes his need to shake more sense into her so they can romp off into the meadows and hold hands and smell the woodsy sent of the woods and race through the daisies and whatever the hell that was. They arrive back at the house and have more sex. Despite basically accusing each other of all this treachery beforehand. I couldn't figure this out. It was like they had extreme short term memory loss, or something.

Anyway, they come to the end of their Colorado weekend getaway and Brig randomly wants to marry her, but she's all "we're only now beginning to trust each other and I still think you drugged my horse and I still want to race Lady's full sister despite my complete inability to think reasonably about breeding practices." And so she flies off to California and he eventually follows her and more sex happens, etc.

As we have all figured out by now, Becca's brother drugged the horse. We'll just skip to that reveal, because there was a lot of blathering that I suppose was suspenseful, but probably wasn't, about stuff that happened between then and now regarding Dean and his fooling around with some girl that resulted in a pregnancy and really...we'll move on. Dean is a gambler, and he wanted some quick cash, so he drugged Lady for Brig's (apparently evil) father. Dean then pissed that money away, and decided to take care of his sister out of guilt. Only then he's eventually arrested and the authorities actually take what he did seriously. That surprised me. So the story skips on and touches lightly on things that happen later. Brig and Becca get married, Gypsy Wind starts to race, wins the filly triple crown, and then the public starts to demand a match race. Just randomly, despite there being no other horse to really race her against, the public wants a match race...uh huh. That's likely. So the Triple Crown produced three different winners for each race, and they all race together, and predictably Gypsy sort of breaks down. Despite it only being a tendon injury, Becca totally overreacts and says "no more racing!" Just like that. Not only that, no more breeding! Maybe! (Honestly, that decision probably would have been a good one for the industry.)

So they go home and Becca thinks that maybe she won't give up the horse breeding, because now that she's married to Brig her farm is actually pretty now. But he says that maybe it's a good thing to give it up for a while, because, you see, she has to carry his children eventually and now would be the best time. Oh, Brig. Just try to refrain from shaking sense into her while she's pregnant, okay?

• After the match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure, the colt's trainer's dad said "First time they threw some speed at her, and the bitch comes unbuckled." People thought that was a little, um, uncalled for, to say the least. It's also something you really remember, and I wasn't even alive in 1975. So what does Lisa Jackson do? She paraphrases: "We threw a fast pace at the bitch and she just broke down." After this, you know the next scene: fictional horse dies the Ruffian death right down to the letter.

Now comes the moment when I have to address the sex scenes. Seriously, there were a lot of them in this book, and it's not a long book, so I'll just leave that to your imagination. I can't be trusted there, as I'll start giggling and this entry will take a sharp dive. However, after the first sex scene, I started skipping straight to dialogue within the sex scene and only reading that. For instance:

"Undress me."
"I want to make love to you. I want to make love to you and never stop."
"Then do, Brig, please make love to me."
"These last few weeks have been torturous. I tried to stay away -- Lord knows, I tried, but I couldn't. You're just too damned mystifying and I can't seem to get enough of you."
"I hope you never can."
"You're beautiful. I want you."
"Then love me, Brig, love me."
"I want you, Brig. I want you more than I ever have."
"Oh God, Rebecca, I do love you."

So, if you made it through that, congratulations. I didn't even pick the scene where he randomly calls her his cherished lady, or something. Who needs to read the details when you have that?

The second part of this two in one is called Devil's Gambit. I'll be back later to deal with that one.

The Thoroughbred Series does not use torture as a stylistic device.

Because I have a Google Alert set up for the Thoroughbred series, this page popped up in my inbox. Much to my amusement, it had a review analysis of Wonder's Promise which included:

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - no torture/death
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog

No kidding.