Reviewed by Amber
TITLE: Captive to His Wonder
AUTHOR: Remmy Duchene
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 216 pages
BLURB:
Shipped off to boarding school at a young age, Bradley Ellesbury Jr. lacked for nothing, except the love and approval of his father. Now with his father’s recent passing, Bradley feels the sting of disapproval one last time with the reading of the will.
Forced to leave behind his glamorous Parisian lifestyle, Bradley returns to the small town of Foster Creek to do precisely what his father forbade—sell the ranch. Meeting the infuriating cowboy his father hired to run the place only makes him more determined to go against his father’s wishes.
Too old to be playing mind games with twenty-something know-it-alls, Jace Cornielle stays only because he promised the old man. Somewhere between picking fights and making snarky comments, Jace and Bradley move from annoyance to attraction. Then Bradley learns losing the cowboy means he loses everything.
REVIEW:
I am so completely torn with this review. I hate when this happens because I have to factor in the fact that I did enjoy a good 50% of this book but I really disliked the other 50%. I can’t really recommend a partial part of a book. So, overall I’m very conflicted.
The book starts with Bradley Ellesbury Jr. returning home from Paris in the wake of his Father’s death. Right from the beginning an immense dislike for Bradley’s character starts blooming inside of me. He’s so unbelievable bratty, selfish and just downright mean. What I was hoping would happen is we’d get a flashback to interactions he’s had with his father as to why he is the way he is but that didn’t happen. Following the dictates of the will he is returning home to his family’s ranch. The moment he arrives he sees Jace (his love interest in the story) doing some work on a fence. His inner battle and dialogue makes it seem like he is very comfortable being a gay man. I got the feeling he knows who he is and is not ashamed, but later on we find out that isn’t the case at all and that struck me as odd.
Jace Cornielle essentially runs the ranch since Bradley Sr. death. His first interaction with Bradley Jr. ended in disaster because Bradley treated Jace like a servant not like an equal. Jace also is a veterinarian and is extremely well educated so he doesn’t appreciate this little rich kid coming in and trying to dictate over everyone. I actually liked Jace’s character in the story. He is caring, kind, and good. He stands up for what is right which is an admirable trait.
Bradley’s brattiness doesn’t change throughout the book. Even towards the end he delivered the most absurd and outlandish ultimatum to Jace and I was just shaking my head. His character and personality may have ruined this whole book for me. I honestly have no idea why Jace was attracted to him emotionally.
I should mention that the writing in this book wasn’t bad. It was rather good. From the beginning I wanted to know what was going to happen and I was eager to watch Bradley develop into a man but his same childish ways continued to the very end and that was disappointing. Another positive is this COVER….wow, it’s beautiful. And this author can write an amazing sex scene. I was hoping there would be a little BDSM because of Bradley fantasies but even without that element they were pretty good together.
So, overall this did fall short for me but I would read other books from this author because the writing was good.
RATING: 
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