Publication Date: February 11, 2013
Caitlin Meyers has been notified that the resort she runs for troubled teens will be closed and she’s desperately been trying to get in touch with Brandon Barnes, the owner. Brandon has not returned her calls or emails and in a final desperate bid, she decides to kidnap him to get him to listen to her arguments to save the camp. One problem, instead of kidnapping Brandon she kidnaps his brother Dalton. Dalton has long been the bad boy of the family. He turned his back on the family business to go on the rodeo circuit. Intrigued by his attraction to Caitlin and her devotion to the children, he decides to give her a hand with his brother. Brandon agrees to delay the sale of the camp but only if Dalton helps repair the cabins and manage the incoming troubled teens. Will involvement have a cost Dalton isn’t willing to pay or will he and Caitlin save the camp and find love?
[easyazon_link identifier=”B00BG0TI6A” locale=”US” tag=”rabidreaders-20″]Kidnapped Cowboy (Captured Hearts Series Book 1)[/easyazon_link] is a romance novel. There are no spoilers here. The point is not to save the camp or help the kids or for the black sheep to reunite with the family that sees his as a bit of a drifter. It is animal attraction, sex and an emotional bond activated by the snapping-together of personal parts. I think it’s perhaps symbolic that Dalton is known for working with horses with problems and he’s faced with a flighty and excitable female that embodies the worst stereotypes of the genre.
Caitlin is an illogical character. She is a registered psychologist that runs a camp to help teens find their way to a productive path. We’re told (via the book she shows Dalton and a visit from a former student) that she’s had great success in helping teens turn their lives around in the way the camp helped her turn her life around many years before. Everything we’re told about Caitlin speaks of responsibility and caution which is belied by the fact that she kidnaps a man during a snowstorm in April and takes him to a remote cabin with no means to contact the outside world. That Caitlin and Dalton are stuck in the cabin for two days is somewhat abbreviated so that when they’re found on the second day as Brandon gives buyers a tour of the camp, it comes as a surprise to the reader that they’ve been there that long. In another scene Caitlin twists her ankle and Dalton overreacts to a level that some women may find attractive (Caitlin finds it embarrassing) but I found histrionic and not fitting with the man the author tells us Dalton has become after life on the circuit. He then gifts her with chocolate kisses because “woman like chocolate.”
The abbreviation of events leads the rest of the book through to campers arriving. The troubled teens are glossed over (many of them don’t have names), the one on whom the author chooses to focus is referenced in generic terms. They do read much younger than teenagers and perhaps more giggly 12-year-olds rather than at risk teens. How is it that Caitlin has successfully run a camp for troubled teens for years when she’s prepared to send a child home for missing a counselling session? Only one of the young girls is given a name and as oldest of the girls is the only one that speaks outside of the chorus and perhaps has two lines. It is somewhat creepy how invested the child chorus is in Dalton’s and Caitlin’s relationship. There is a scene in which Dalton kisses Caitlin and they part to see everyone watching them. Brandon’s confrontation with his ex-girlfriend gets more descriptive development than any of the events or characters in the teen camp. Even without the excerpt of the next book at the end, it could not have been clearer that Brandon will be the star of the next novel. He’s rich, a workaholic and extremely uptight.
I read this book while sick, so I was looking for something light and mindless and [easyazon_link identifier=”B00BG0TI6A” locale=”US” tag=”rabidreaders-20″]Kidnapped Cowboy (Captured Hearts Series Book 1)[/easyazon_link] fit the bill. If you’re looking for a quick read without a lot of substance, pick it up today.
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For more information about Lindsey Brookes, visit her website. You can connect with her on Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter @lindsey_brookes.