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Adrienne
read and liked
Melissab's
review of Too Tough to Tame:
"Tess Summar lives in a small Montana town named False Hope. She lives with her married brother John, who is the town's doctor, and helps him with his practice. One day a young Indian girl is brought to her brother who is dying from a gunshot. The tow...more
Tess Summar lives in a small Montana town named False Hope. She lives with her married brother John, who is the town's doctor, and helps him with his practice. One day a young Indian girl is brought to her brother who is dying from a gunshot. The town's Marshall says her brother accidently shot her while he was trying to get away while stealing horses. Before the girl dies, she tells Tess that the Marshall was the person who shot her, not her brother. She gets Tess to promise to help her brother, who she thinks was shot and probably went to a nearby cave injured. Tess thinks the girl is delirious but agrees to ease her mind. When the Indian girl's Blackfoot family comes to collect her body, she tells one of the warriors that the girl thinks her brother is injured in the hills.
A few days later, Tess is kidnapped by the Blackfeet warrior, Brown Otter, who she talked to before because he wants her to help the injured Storm-in-His-Eyes, the dead girl's brother. Storm is lying injured in a nearby cave and needs her help. Tess agrees to help Storm once she sees how injured he is because she feels bad for him and because she promised the dying girl. Storm is out of his mind with fever for days as Tess tries to save his life.
Once Storm wakes up, he is not happy to see a white woman attending him. He has spent some time in the white world, where white women have brought him nothing but trouble. Now white men have unjustly accused him of stealing horses and killing his sister. Tess sticks up for herself to Storm and lets him know just how hard she fought to save his life. Storm is attracted to Tess because she has two things he finds irresistible - pluck and freckles. Tess is also attracted to Storm but realizes that nothing can come of it because they are from two different worlds.
Storm's friend Black Otter shows up with the tribe's Medicine Woman to help heal him. Once Storm is feeling better they tell Tess that it is time for her to head home, which Storm agrees with because he doesn't want to bring trouble to her life. On the way back to town, Tess is accosted by two white men dressed as Indians but she is saved in time by Storm and Brown Otter. They bring her to the Blackfeet village to help her heal from wounds she received when she fell from her horse. While in the village, Tess starts to fall in love with Storm who is the strong man she has always dreamed of having. She likes living with the Blackfeet Indians because they treat her as an honored Medicine Woman, not as a helpless female like the white people in town do. Storm is also falling for Tess but he will not think about allowing anything between them because Tess does not belong in his world and he refuses to live in the white world again. Plus he plans on killing the Marshall in retaliation for his sister and hunting down the men who attacked Tess, so he wants Tess back in town where she will be safe.
After one night of hot loving, Tess goes back into town to live. But the passion between them refuses to go away, causing both Tess and Storm to take a hard look at what is important to them and try to find a way for them to live together. Storm has a lot to work through because he needs to consider if he is willing to be with a white woman and what that would mean to his place in the tribe. He also needs to find the white men responsible for the "Indian" attacks before trouble is brought to his tribe - plus he and the Marshall are heading for a showdown. Will Tess and Storm find a way to work everything out so they can be together and will they survive the men out to get them? (Hint: since it's Romancelandia, the answer is YES).
I enjoyed this western/Native American romance. The two leads were very likeable. Tess was a very strong woman who wanted more than the life she had - marginalized by her brother, who didn't appreciate her nursing ablilities and wanted to marry her off to any eligible man. She wanted to fall in love with a strong man who would appreciate her and give her children but she was a spinster to most of the town's people. Storm saw her as a very desirable woman from the start and he appreciated her medical skills (well they did save his life). They found a wonderful love together and were willing to fight for the right to live together. Storm was a very honorable man who treated Tess with respect and didn't want to bring danger to her life so he tries to stay away from her because he has been branded an outlaw by the corrupt Marshall - but he feels so strongly for Tess that he just can't stay away.
Overall, this was a nice western/Native American romance that was written well. The characters were likable and the story was interesting. Plus who can resist a hot hero who is named Storm-in-His-Eyes?
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