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    To Love and to Cherish: A Cactus Creek Novel
    Unavailable
    To Love and to Cherish: A Cactus Creek Novel
    Unavailable
    To Love and to Cherish: A Cactus Creek Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    To Love and to Cherish: A Cactus Creek Novel

    Written by Leigh Greenwood

    Narrated by Devon Sorvari

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    When Laurie Spencer said "I do", she never realized she'd be trading one pair of shackles for another - until her husband's unexpected death leaves her with an opportunity to escape her controlling family for good. Determined to be independent, Laurie approaches sexy rancher Jared Smith with an offer she hopes he can't refuse.

    When unconsciously sensual Laurie offers a partnership, and she throws herself in as part of the deal, Jared's not sure he'll be able to respect the terms of their agreement and keep his eyes - and his hands - to himself.

    There's something about Laurie that awakens every protective instinct Jared has...and when all hell breaks loose, there's nothing and no one who'll be able to keep this cowboy from her side.

    ©2014 Leigh Greenwood (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateNov 3, 2015
    ISBN9781681418759
    Unavailable
    To Love and to Cherish: A Cactus Creek Novel
    Author

    Leigh Greenwood

    Okay, let's get the hard stuff out of the way right up front. Leigh is a man! He knows men aren't supposed to write romance, but he does and he doesn't intend to quit. He says it's fun. If you're still mad, you can blame it on his wife. He wouldn't have known what romance was if, after he got married in 1972, romances hadn't started collecting all over the house. They were everywhere he looked-in the den, on the kitchen table, in the living room, stacked along one whole wall in the bedroom, even in the bathroom. When his wife wasn't cooking or taking care of the children, she was reading a romance. He admits he was a little supercilious about her choice of reading material. After all, he was reading Dickens, Hemingway, Austen, the classics! He started calling them her "sin, lust, and passion" books. He said it so often his daughter started calling them Mommy's "celeste" passion books. He thought it was riotously funny. His wife didn't. One day, after what he's certain was a typically rude remark (you have to understand he'd never read a romance, just looked at the covers and made a snap judgment), she threw a book at him and told him to read it or shut up. Being an obedient husband (his wife's expletive deleted!), he read the book. It was Georgette Heyer's These Old Shades. He loved it. To this day it's one of his favorite books. Being thoroughly hooked, he searched new and used bookstores until he'd collected every book Georgette Heyer ever wrote. After reading them all several times, he asked his wife to suggest some other books. Since he has a minor in history, she started him on a diet of the icons of early historical romance: Kathleen Woodiwiss, Rosemary Rogers, Jennifer Blake, Bertrice Small, and Johanna Lindsey. By then he was completely addicted. Somewhere along the line, he read that women could make decent money (more than he could as a music teacher) writing historical romances, so he tried to get his wife to write one. She told him she couldn't write, that he ought to write one. He said he couldn't think of a plot. This went back and forth for some time until he said if she'd give him a plot, he'd write a book. She said, "I've lost everything." It wasn't a plot, but it must have been enough. He sat down and started writing. Eight hundred and eighty-nine pages later, he had finished his first romance. He didn't know much about writing, and nothing at all about the romance market, so he had to write two more books and join Romance Writers of America before he knew enough to sell his first book. Wyoming Wildfire was published by Zebra in 1987. Since then he's written 34 more books and four novellas. He's recently celebrated his 60th birthday, so he calls writing his midlife crisis career. He has a B.A. in Voice and an M.A. in Musicology from the University of North Carolina. He taught music in schools and/or was an organist/choir director in churches for 32 years before retiring to write full-time. He's been married for 29 years. His wife is a nurse, but after years of working in a hospital on weekends to help make ends meet, she took a full-time job in an HMO. She said she was too old to be a hospital nurse any longer. He thinks having three children and being married to him just wore the poor lady down. They have three grown children (notice he didn't say mature or responsible!) who are momentarily living in distant parts of the United States. He enjoys gardening when he can find time off from writing and his duties as husband, father-at-a-distance, and slave to the family cat. You may contact Leigh at LeighGwood@aol.com or by writing to P.O. Box 470761, Charlotte, NC 28226. An SASE would be appreciated. Leigh's web page address is www.tlt.com/authors/leighgreenwood.htm.

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    Reviews for To Love and to Cherish

    4.5/5

    4 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

      Laurie's husband has just died and the only thing she is feeling is a sense of sweet freedom. Her husband Noah was incredibly controlling and looked for ways to constantly demean her. However, even from the grave Noah has found a way to command Laurie's life as his will is set up to give his brother Norman authority to dole out the estate money how and whenever he sees fit. As Norman is quite possibly worse than Noah, Laurie is justifiably upset. When Laurie finds out the new rancher, Jared, in town was denied a loan for a herd of cattle he wants, she approaches him with a deal. With money Laurie has secretly acquired, a plot point from To Have and To Hold book one in the series, she offers Jared the money in exchange for a fifty percent partnership in his ranch. This partnership will provide Laurie with an independent means of income and the sense of freedom she craves. While giving up half of his ranch profits is the last thing he wants to do, Jared also can't say no to money that will buy the cattle he desperately wants and not to mention the way he feels when he looks into Laurie's eyes. With their business partnership sealed, Laurie and Jared start to realize that keeping pleasure out of the mix is going to be harder than they thought.

      Along with medievals it seems like westerns have went the way of the buffalo in the last couple years, so it was fun to visit this time period and atmosphere again. The author does a wonderful job of setting the scenery and immersing the reader into everyday American western settlers. In fact, it may be too good of a job as a lot of the story is devoted to this which left the main couple's relationship faded to the background. It also created a slower moving story; it wasn't boring, just a more attention to everyday life with nothing hurried. With my fast talking Northern ways though, maybe this pace was perfectly fitting for a western ;) If the white horse on the cover doesn't tip you off, this story is a little bit of a throwback to older romance books. The prose had a tendency to veer towards flowery and purple but is not of the bodice ripper variety, more of a gently romantic tone. There were also a couple times when I thought this could have been edited down to make it more streamlined, some repeated lines especially dealing with describing Jared as sensual, but after the 32% mark the story started to come together and I quit focusing on the technical aspects and became more involved with Laurie and Jared.

      Laurie's anger and pain will reach a tender spot for every woman as we all will be thankful of the equality and advantages our modern times provide us with that Laurie did not have. She develops a strong backbone in negotiating with Jared so that she can have control of her life in the future but displays a heartbreaking vulnerability when it comes to Jared expressing emotions for her and feelings of self-worth. Jared is sensitive and caring but has a strong resolve to make his ranch a success that keeps him busily occupied and a little late to the party about how much he cares about Laurie now that she is in his life. Their romance is subtle and tender with both very leery as to how to proceed but find they can't ultimately live without one another.

      There are a couple plot points that carryover from book one but I never felt lost or confused by them and a couple side stories involving Jared searching for two missing brothers and a town stocked with secondary characters looking for romance. If looking to read a western this definitely has the feel for one and would provide a nice pleasant read about two individuals trying to make it in that world who come together To Love and To Cherish.
    • 4/5
      To Love and To Cherish is the second book and this story features Laurie Spencer and Jared Smith. Laurie Spencer is another of the three female cousins that were introduced to us in the first book. Laurie has just become a widow, her husband having passed away from a heart attack. Laurie is a beautiful woman, but her husband was very controlling in every aspect. He was insanely jealous, and forced her to wear unattractive clothing and she was always by his side, since he didn’t want her to attract male attention. Laurie is shocked to learn that she didn’t inherit everything so that she could be financially secure. He left it to his brother to dish out to her when he felt she needed it. The last thing Laurie wants is to be controlled and have no freedom once more. But she has money, lots of it….money only she knows about. So she makes a pact with handsome rancher, Jared Smith. She will give him her money so he can purchase his cattle if he will let her be his partner in the ranch and so she goes to cook and clean for his crew while learning the ropes of the ranch. Jared will have to be forced to choose over Laurie and the love he has for her or making sure his brother and his men get the money that is owed them.To Love and To Cherish is a spectacular story that I couldn’t get enough of. I was able to listen to this one, since it was available through Hoopla (my library’s audiobook system). It was great to see a continuation of the first book….the people of the wagon train have settled in Arizona, built a nice town and are prospering. It was great fun to see characters from the first book in this story. I grew to really like Laurie. She has great strength and character, bold and goes after what she wants. She isn’t about to bow down to another man and stands on her own which was quite amusing to watch at times. The romance between Jared and Laurie is full of great chemistry from the beginning. It was a different experience seeing them act on their desire for each other pretty early in the book. We see how their emotional bond is built and gets put to the test. This was quite a wonderful story to read, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved seeing the love story take place on a ranch, and seeing the way the ranch hands are all like a family and they take to Laurie instantly. A great spin of a romance, and a western that I would recommend to anyone that loves a great historical love story!! The ending just about made me tear up like crazy….we see some great emotional bonds that get formed and not just between our main couple….It will knock your socks off.