Texas Tender
Leigh Greenwood
Leisure, Jan 2007, $6.99
ISBN: 0843956852

In 1886, Will Haskins arrives in Dunmore, Texas, to buy a bull from Idalou Ellsworth as he plans to start a ranch. However, the usually fiery Idalou is stunned into silence when she sees how beautiful Will is. The bull is missing so Will reluctantly agrees to help her and her brother get the critter back from her neighbor Jordan McGloughlin, though Idalou's sibling would prefer his daughter instead.

Before he can blink and get the dazed Idalou to say coherent sentences, Will has become the temporary sheriff of the town. All the ladies in town think he is a hunk and those not married see him as an ideal spouse. However, he wants Idalou, but first must stop whoever is trying to destroy the Ellsworth siblings in what looks like a land grab from McGloughlin before his beloved does something dangerous on her own.

Few authors if any can bring to life a late-nineteenth-century cowboy romance like Leigh Greenwood consistently does. His latest Texas tale starts with a terrific opening as the in-your-face Idalou is stunned silent when her eyes see Will for the first time, a condition no one who knows this wild termagant has ever seen before. The amusing storyline is a combination of the taming of the no-longer shrew and the hunk who adores her even more than her bull. TEXAS TENDER is a delightful historical romance with a touch of suspense that is clearly a Greenwood-branded winner.

Harriet Klausner