Title: Steel Resolve
Author: B. J. Daniels
Series: Cardwell Ranch: Montana Legacy #1
Generic tale with more suspense than romance and underdeveloped MCs
I would like to thank B. J. Daniels, Harlequin, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was a solid piece of work, but it lacked personality. It was well plotted and moved at a steady pace that didn’t let me get bored—though it slowed, sometimes a bit too much, during passages of introspection, reflection, and exposition—but the hero and heroine, the lifeblood of any romance, were bland and given little development. Chase had the storyline about his father, which gave him some character growth, but we knew little about him other than the unfortunate situation of his parentage, that he loved Mary , and that he could do ranch work and carpentry work. As for Mary, she liked decadent, calorie-loaded coffees that were pretty much desserts in a cup—end of interesting traits. And that trait was necessary for the plot to unfold as it did, not just a character-building fun fact. It was also said she was a rebel, in that she delighted doing the opposite of what her father tried to advise, but to be honest she didn’t strike me as a rebellious sort of person. She seemed too polite, respectable, and serious for that. Not nearly irreverent enough.
Because the MCs had little personality, I didn’t grow close to them or relate to them. Neither did I feel chemistry between Chase and Mary; their declarations of love seemed so automatic and unearned, especially on Chase’s part. We were simply supposed to accept that they fell in love years ago and were still in love despite their time apart. We didn’t see, either in real time or flashback, what happened to cause the rift, were only told about it, so that kept the two and their emotional conflict at arm’s length, too. We didn’t see them fall in love, which means the novel as a whole felt more like a thriller than a romance. The focus was definitely on the suspense and various crimes, because all that Mary and Chase needed to find their HEA was for Mary to reconcile with the fact that he was back and they could pretty much live the life she wanted to begin with, just four years delayed. Not all that romantic, engaging, or page filling.
The antagonists were a mixed bag. I’m not entirely sure what purpose Deputy Douchebag—I mean, Dillon Ramsey—was supposed to serve. He provided an obstacle and rival for Chase in regards to Mary’s affections, but it was so obvious he was an asswipe that I wasn’t at all concerned he was a true threat to Mary and Chase’s HEA. If anything, I lost some respect for Mary for the fact that she bothered dating him despite how few rats’ asses she gave about him—I lost even more respect for the fact that she continued to see him after she’d lost those few rats’ asses she gave. It was like she was trying to punish Chase or make him jealous on a subconscious level she wasn’t even aware of—or justified to herself as “making her own choices.” Also in regards to Deputy Douchebag, Daniels laid out the whole cattle-rustling thing, then totally abandoned it and killed him and his minion Grady off without further ado, leaving me to wonder what the hell the cattle rusting thing had to do with anything, because it came to nothing.
The primary antagonist, Fiona/Lucy, was actually pretty well-developed. Dare I say better developed than the MCs? We knew more about her background, about the trauma she endured growing up, about the challenges she faced as an adult, about her internal conflict, about her personality. We saw moments of vulnerability and regret that almost had me convinced she might do something selfless in the end to partially redeem herself. Unfortunately, she didn’t.
Lastly, there were a few distracting points in which continuity didn’t match up, such as halfway in when Mary and Chase “discover” that his mother met his father in Big Sky and act likes it’s a huge revelation, when that fact has already been known and mentioned at least three times before in the novel. But it could be that those minor issues were fixed in the final draft, so don’t worry too much about those.
Overall, Steel Resolve is good, generic contemporary romantic suspense in a western setting. Nothing stood out about it, it had a mass-produced feel to it, but it wasn’t a terrible waste of time to read, either.
