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Irish Thoroughbred
February 2026: Love
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Irish Thoroubred by Nora Roberts 3.5 stars
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Love your synopsis / review, Sue. "Save a horse, ride a cowboy" indeed!
I read this last year and and gave it the same rating. She's improved over the years, but I remember waiting patiently every month to buy the six Silhouette romances. She, along with Lisa Jackson, Linda Howard, Sandra Brown, etc. provided great alternatives to the British romances of Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland.
I used to read these pretty heavily as well.It's funny how jarring Travi's behavior seems to me now. Those old books definitely didn't subscribe to "No means No"!
The couples were always fated to be together, we knew going in they would fall in love - so the aggressiveness didn't land quite the same way.
Really thinking about it, since Adelia was Travis' employee, I think his behavior might even be illegal now.
I loved Nora when she went from Silhouette to hardcover romances. I loved all the Irish series she wrote back then.
Silhouette on the cover? Guaranteed "happy ever after".
Main characters fall hopelessly in love, but each pretends they're not in love.
The heroine is lost and pretty much all alone in the world. In this case Adelia has an uncle she hasn't seen since childhood. Otherwise she's been an orphan since age 10.
The hero is rich, worldly and a bit older than the heroine. He's condescending about how naive and innocent she is. He's furious if others take advantage of her - all the while somewhat taking advantage of her himself.
Sexual advances are insanely forceful, and yet end only in brief kissing. (These scenes didn't age well!)
Even with all that, I did enjoy the underlying plot. Adelia has come to America to live with her uncle. She spent her whole life on a farm in Ireland where she worked herself to the bone BUT had enough time to help the local vet. So now she's got a magic touch with horses.
Her uncle works for a rich horse breeder - the very handsome Travis Grant. When she arrives, one of the grooms has been thrown off a prize thoroughbred horse. But Adelia (due to her time helping a vet of course) is able to soothe and ride this horse like no one else.
So naturally Adelia and Travis fall in love (was there ever a question?) and the horse goes on to win all the races. They get married, have a 6 page crisis when Travis' ex-girlfriend appears, then Happy Ever After. The End.