Taming the Lone Wolf / Single in the Saddle

by Joan Johnston, Vicki Lewis Thompson

An encounter with the right woman forces reclusive loner Stony Carlton to reconsider his lonely life in Taming the Lone Wolf, and Daphne Proctor sets out to change the mind of marriage-phobic rancher Stony Arnett in Single in the Saddle. Reprint.

Genres: Romance

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Joan Johnston (born Little Rock, Arkansas) is a best-selling American author of over forty contemporary and historical romance novels.

Johnston was the third of seven children born to an Air Force sergeant and his music-teacher wife. She received a B.A. in theatre arts from Jacksonville University in 1970, then earning an M.A. in theatre from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1971. She received a law degree (with honors) at the University of Texas at Austin in 1980. For the next five years, Johnston worked as an attorney, serving with the Hunton & Williams firm in Richmond, Virginia, and with Squire, Sanders, & Dempsey in Miami. She has also worked as a newspaper editor and drama critic in San Antonio, Texas, and as a college professor at Southwest Texas Junior College, Barry University, and the University of Miami.

Johnston is a member of the Authors Guild, Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, and Florida Romance Writers. She has two children and one grandchild, and divides her time between two homes, in Colorado and Florida.

Awards

* Paperbook Book Club of America's Book Rak Award (twice)
* Romantic Times' Best Western Historical Series Award (twice)
* Romantic Times' Best New Western Writer
* Romantic Times' Best Historical Series Award (twice)
* The Maggie (twice)
* Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist for The Disobedient Bride

Reviews

[Tim Covell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 2001 combo of sort-of rural/cowboy stories from the 1990s (i.e. no cell phones). Both feature steamy lust-driven romance where the sex is hot, but will it lead to love? Not really my preferred plot, but both have their strengths. In Taming the Lone Wolf, the set up is absurdly quick, and something of a stretch, but it's short book. Tight plotting and cute kid help make it work. One character is keeping a secret that could destroy the relationship, a trope I love, and the suspense subplot is minimal but effective. Single in the Saddle is delightfully comic. The setup: a group of bumbling farmhands on a rundown farm arrange a marriage for their domestically hopeless boss, by impersonating him through letters in a dating service (1990s, remember?). The woman who arrives is obsessed with decorating everything according to the principles of feng shui, including the bunkhouse. With both women being housekeepers, there's all the sexism you get from the cowboy genre and 90s romance novels, but both are fun quick reads.

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 2 out of 5]

So... I received this as a gift set from a contest. I read it and realized that I may be overloading on contemporary romance. These aren't bad. They were just okay and I also realized that cowboy themes don't do it for me.

[NorthernLightsGirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both stories were really good. But I prefered Joan Johnston's Taming the Lone Wolf.