Reviews for Not Part of the Bargain

The average rating for Not Part of the Bargain based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-05-05 00:00:00 Kristina Petersen [but in an act that shows there is such a thing as karma, it looks as if he is falling for the OW. (hide spoiler)]

Review # 2 was written on 2017-09-23 00:00:00 William Patt This one lacks the intensity of some of Susan Fox's other stories, but the cruel (lite in this case) hero, the wannabe OW and the bitchy sister are all included. H/h married when the heroine was 17 and her father was dying. Seems the hero's brother gambled all of their ranching profits away and the hero needed a capital infusion to borrow against. The h's father said he could have his ranch if he married the heroine and then taught her to be a rancher. Heroine grew up without a mother and was farmed out to elderly aunt and then boarding schools. She doesn't know how to ride a horse or drive a car. After they married (unconsummated) and her father died, she fled to Des Moines (as you do) took a secretarial course and got a job. She's been living on her own for a few years when the hero returns to complete the bargain. He's going to teach her how to ranch so he can divorce her (and marry the OW is the unspoken part of the plan). He's shocked to discover that the heroine is now pretty and isn't the shy, sad teenager he remembers. The rest of the story is the hero falling for the heroine as she deals with his bitchy sister and learns to ranch. There are scenes of a mare having a foal, a tornado, a down home BBQ. Thankfully, the OW is actually nice and not interested in the hero. The H/h fall into bed after the BBQ. The hero is not ready to acknowledge his feelings and the last bit of angst is the heroine receiving divorce papers. There's a nice scene where the heroine tells off the sister and there's a miscarriage to round out the angst. Whether the hero really fell in love with the heroine or whether it was easier to stay married once he realized they were sexually compatible is up to debate. The hero was never deliberately mean to her and he did apologize for being "insensitive" when they were first married so that's a good start for a Susan Fox hero. The hero is more assertive because she is not debilitated by guilt like so many SF heroines. It's a nice change of pace, but it does reduce the intensity.