Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: Neil’s Guardian Angel
SERIES: Cattle Valley #17
AUTHOR: Carol Lynne
PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing
LENGTH: 90 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2010
BLURB:
After a fall from his horse leaves Neil Peters in need of around-the-clock care, he is forced to face a past he doesn’t even remember. Ben Waters, the man constantly at his beside, doesn’t even look familiar. So why does Neil feel there’s more to the story when Ben introduces himself as Neil’s legal guardian?
Ben’s inappropriate feelings towards his ward once forced him to send Neil away. Now, Neil once again threatens Ben’s control. Ben tries to push aside his desires as he helps Neil but they won’t be shoved away this time. And soon he learns, reaching out to the man he still loves is the only way for both of them to come to terms with their pasts and their future.
REVIEW:
So, there was more going on in this installment of the Cattle Valley Series than I’d expected and while that can be a good thing at times, I found I had some issues with it here. Neil was introduced in the previous book and this is where you get to see him on the road to recovery after his accident. Besides having to work on being able to walk again, however, Neil is also dealing with some amnesia which makes things more difficult. Formerly Neil’s guardian, Ben is called in to help with his recovery but the reasons Ben sent Neil away are still there and despite the time apart, he finds he still has feelings for his previous ward. Ben also has some dominant tendencies that, coupled with Neil’s past, would make a relationship difficult.
A few books back, (#14) there was another story dealing with injury recovery that I thought had too much sex and not enough relationship building in it. Here, there was much less sex, but I still found the relationship building and connection between the characters to be on the lean side. I liked the characters in general but still couldn’t really see them together or their relationship lasting the test of time, so to speak. Besides that, there were other issues that I never felt were adequately resolved like dealing with Neil’s past and some lingering questions revolving around his amnesia and feelings for Ben. I was never really certain whether he actually remembered Ben, and loved him before, or if he just learned to love Ben now based on what he’d learned during this whole ordeal. *shrugs* I also personally felt bringing up BDSM and Ben’s dominant leanings were unnecessary as nothing every happened with it and talking about it only for it not to go anywhere seemed a little pointless to me.
In general the story was decent but there were too many unanswered questions for me and some others just weren’t satisfying enough. It was good to read it for series progression if nothing else but I don’t know if I’ll read this one again in the future.
RATING: 
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