Format read: ebook provided by NetGalleyFormats available: ebook, mass market paperback, audiobook
Genre: Western romance
Series: Parable, Montana, #5
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Date Released: August 27, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Wedding bells are ringing in Parable, Montana, but Brylee Parrish hasn’t enjoyed the sound since being jilted at the altar by Hutch Carmody. She’s over Hutch now, and running a multimillion-dollar business is challenging enough for this country gal. So she should avoid falling head over boot heels for A-list actor Zane Sutton. He’s come home to his rodeo roots, but Hollywood lured him away once and just might again. Yet everything about him, from his easy charm to his concern for his young half brother, seems too genuine to resist….
Zane didn’t come to Parable for love—but count on a spirited woman to change a jaded cowboy’s mind. Problem is, Brylee’s not convinced he’s here to stay. Good thing he’s determined to prove to her, kiss by kiss, that she’s meant to be his bride.
My Review:
I am so glad that Brylee finally got over the “wedding that wasn’t.” It certainly took the woman long enough to get past the huge meteor strike she took to her pride!
Brylee Parrish and Hutch Carmody’s almost wedding was one of the foundation stories for the Parable, Montana series–it’s practically how the whole thing started. But Brylee got left behind in a bridezilla wedding confection, while Hutch rode off into the sunset with the woman of his dreams in Big Sky Mountain. While I loved Big Sky Mountain, (review at Book Lovers Inc.) Brylee does not come out of that story as a character you want meet again.
By the time the story of Big Sky Wedding rolls around, Brylee Parrish has grown up a bit. She’s taken the anger and heartache of being left behind and used it to make a name for herself and create a mega-successful international home-party decorating company, Decor Galore. She’s put Three Trees Montana, and neighboring Parable, on the map. She’s also one of the area’s biggest employers.
She’s also lonely. Whether that’s because of, or in spite of, living right next door to her brother Walker and his new family (see Big Sky Summer, reviewed here) is hard for Brylee to say.
She might even be over Hutch. Getting over the man was way easier than getting over the loss of all her dreams, but she’s finally reaching that conclusion, too.
And into her life rides Zane Sutton. Former, and maybe future, rodeo rider. Current, and maybe former, Hollywood actor. Definitely the current owner of the ranch next door to the spread that she owns with her brother Walker.
Zane is the first man who has a chance of pulling her all the way back to the woman she used to be. If he’s really come to Parable to stay. If Brylee can trust that a member of the much-derided Hollywood actor-species would ever come to Three Trees to actually put down roots.
If Brylee can let herself ever trust her heart to any man again.
Escape Rating B: Brylee’s story has been building for a long time, but when we finally get it here in Big Sky Wedding, it felt a bit on the short side. Some of the previous books in the series built the romance up more than this one seemed to. I don’t mean that it was rushed, I mean that the story that built was more about Brylee finally getting over the last of her hurt pride and her isolation after her busted wedding than the actual romance between her and Zane.
Also, we’ve seen Brylee in all the stories so far, but Zane (along with his family) is new. He’s also the beginning of a new (and the final) story arc. Zane brings interesting baggage, in that he comes to escape his accidental acting career, and wants to return to ranching. He’s been searching for a home, a return to a “real” life. How that “real” life finds him makes the reader watch him grow and change, because Zane has a family deposited on him in the form of his much younger half-brother, Nash, and, of course, an adopted stray dog named Slim. As well as his formidable housekeeper Cleo, who must be the new Opal. Let’s just say that Zane’s household needed the Cleo-tornado extra bad, in much the same way that Slade Barlow needed Opal in Big Sky Country.
There is one final book in Parable, Montana. I wonder what secrets will be revealed in Big Sky Secrets? I’m going to be sorry to see this series end.
