Lori Foster: Sawyer

By J. W. Ashley on July 25, 2012 • ( 0 )

Romancing July: 30 Books, 30 Covers, 30 Days: Cover Me and Review

Foster kicks off a fun brother series with few hitches in Sawyer, (Buckhorn Brother, book 1).

Grade: C (Amazon 3 Stars)

Synopsis: Country Doctor Sawyer Hudson has sworn off women after his young wife betrayed him, but his tidy existence meets its match when Honey Malone literally crashes into his life on the run from murderers! Will Honey and Sawyer learn to to trust each other enough to save her from villains and to save them both from a life of loneliness?

The Good: I have grown to be a great fan of series in general, and these brothers are pretty tempting. In most series, of course, characters that will have leading roles in future books are kept on the periphery until they are finally pulled onto center stage. What Foster does well here is putting the entire family in one sprawling house and mixing them all together in a tangled, funny, family mess. It really generates interest in the rest of the series.

I have to admit that I find her presentation of the brothers a wee bit awkward–the brothers Hudson are clearly a designed assortment of man-flesh. Foster even creates a back story that give some of the men different fathers so that the eye candy is diverse. And she makes no qualms about asserting the Female Gaze. As we meet each brother, the varied descriptions read like descriptions from a mail-order-husband magazine: Choose from one of several great lines: Doctor, Veterinarian, Sheriff…

Still, I am intrigued by all the brothers and can’t wait to see what Foster has planned for all of them. They are all endearing and comic and attractive for different reasons.

I also really loved that Sawyer was a single father. Seeing him interact with his son was exciting, exotic even–for all its rarity in romance fiction.

The Bad: It’s short (a little over 200 pages). When everything must happen in few pages, things that might have been tender and emotional often leave you rolling your eyes: (Honey’s wanting to know about Sawyer’s family “because they are part of [him]” was particularly cloying). And mystery that might have kept you guessing comes off as clumsy: (You’ll know what I mean when the dancing scene happens…).

Still, Foster does her best to make all this work logically, and she does much to invest us in the idea of love-at-first-sight as a way to explain the immediate love, lust, and concern between Sawyer and Honey. And it works. Most of the time. The mystery was less effective, but it was interesting, at least until the last few pages, where it was so quickly resolved it whirled by without suspense.

The only ham-handed thing that I still don’t understand is the repeated confusion and worry over why the Hudson men know that her name is “Honey.” It started as an annoying encumbrance and became little more than that.

The Ugly: The Cover. Oh, the cover…

We’ve all been there. We’re wandering through a bookstore, or maybe aimlessly searching suggestions, looking at random lists on Amazon.com for something to read. Happily, we traipse through booktopias convinced that we’re going to find something wonderful to read and then… We are greeted with this:

Before I begin, I feel I must point out one very simple fact:

Most authors get absolutely no input in their covers, or, if they do, it’s mostly a kind of courtesy. Publishers rule. Authors weep and hope for reprints.

Challenge accepted. Unleashing Mockery… OLD and NEW covers!!!

So…Lori Foster, my dear… I bet your happy for the cover change, huh? ‘Cause…neckless Farmboy is–NOT–cute. That aside…what is with pink-toned nekkid embarrassed guy? Is he shy? Is that why he’s pink? Is his aura embarassed? Or is this like a special happy-joy filter? And what’s with this sign of shame? Is he hiding behind the author’s name because he has three man-nipples? Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, cute little nips.

Forgive the cover artists, for they know not what they do.

More Books With Benefits for You–>

Cover Me: Judith McNaught’s Until You

Review: Irene Preston’s Infamous

Editorial: Man’s Trash Is a Woman’s Treasure?

Stranger IN Fiction: An Open Letter to J.R. Ward (about Aggressive Males in Romance Fiction)

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