Diana Kincaid had been kidnapped, drugged, and her baby girl ripped from her arms just moments after her birth. She needed a miracle. She needed a hero. What she got was Ross Taylor, a fugitive from the law and a man suspected of murder.
Accused of a crime he didn't commit, Ross Taylor knew helping Diana would put his own life in jeopardy. His only chance for freedom was to get as far away from the Texas socialite as possible. And yet his only chance at love was right in her arms.
Born in desperation, their unlikely alliance was about to be tested, for the kidnappers wanted to make a deal, and the price could very well be their lives…
TRUEBLOOD, TEXAS: Where the bonds of family, tradition and honor run as deep and are as vast as the great Lone Star State.
Joanna Wayne began her professional writing career with the release of her first novel, DEEP IN THE BAYOU, in 1994, but Joanna will be the first to tell you that the wheels were set in motion years before. She started reading at four years of age, the same age that she began making weekly trips to the library to check out as many books as they’d let her have, only to finish reading them all before bedtime. That love of books never waned.
Joanna was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana and was the middle child of a large family. She moved to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1984 when she married her current husband. New Orleans opened up a whole new realm of activities and she found the mix of cultures, music, history, food and sultry southern classics along with her love of reading a natural impetus for beginning her writing career. It was there that she attended her first writing class and joined her first professional writing organization. From that point on, there was no looking back.
Now, forty published books later, Joanna has made a name for herself as being on the cutting edge of romantic suspense in both series and mainstream novels. She is known for the suspense and emotion she brings to the page, as she takes ordinary people and thrusts them into life-and-death situations. She has been on the Walden Bestselling List for romance and won many industry awards. She is a popular speaker at writing organizations and local community functions and has taught creative writing at the University of New Orleans Metropolitan College.
She currently resides in a small community forty miles north of Houston, Texas with her husband. Though she still has many family and emotional ties to Louisiana, she loves living in the Lone Star state.
This gets off to a good start, jumping right into the plot as Diana Kincaid is in the clutches of her kidnappers, giving birth in a cabin in the woods. Then her baby is taken away from her! She is rescued by Ross Taylor, an ex-police officer cowboy on the run after escaping from a crooked sheriff trying to kill him. Ross had been set up for murder. The two of them must work together to find out why Diana was kidnapped and her baby stolen, and who exactly framed Ross for murder.
However, after that decent start, the pacing just dies in the ass and nothing else ever really happens! Diana and Ross flit from place to place, trying to avoid detection for Ross' sake. She wants him to help her get her baby back, as she fears her Governor father will only complicate things if he finds out what has happened, and obviously it's too dangerous to go to the cops, as Ross just escaped from a corrupt lawman. And that's it. The plot never really picks up again. Diana and Ross never really solve anything themselves. People just handily get in touch with them so that the plot can move to its next point. The identity of the person behind framing Ross for murder and stole Diana's baby is revealed unexpectedly early, further draining the suspense, and their motives lack believability and cohesion. The finale is brief and flat.
The romance is nothing to surrender to. Right up until the very last pages, Ross is ready to walk out on Diana, as he's not into the fancy life of being with a Governor's daughter. Although he acknowledges he loves Diana internally to himself, this is not reflected in his actions. He doesn't actually tell her out loud that he loves her! It didn't feel like a happy ever after, because I'm not convinced he won't still walk out on Diana if her life gets too "fancy" for him.
Diana was kidnapped, gave birth and her baby stolen. Ross was framed for murder and managed to escape from a botched attempt to murder him in a faked escape. He finds her imprisoned in a shack and helps her escape. Now they are both on the run trying to locate her baby and clear his name. There is some good action and suspense. This was a category series romantic suspense that I think would have been better as a larger publication. That would have allowed for more character development. There are several side plots that are alluded to, and characters that you know have their own story. I would have like a different format and more character development.
This really was one suspense that had me guessing until the end. I enjoyed the whole story line and couldn't wait to find out what had happened to Alexandra and how she would end up.