"Steel Resolve" is an overall okay book. The plot was interesting but I felt the characters fell a bit flat for me.

I've always been a fan of BJ Daniels. This book is a good romance combined with suspense. I liked the strong female protagonist. The characters are well developed and the action keeps the story moving.

This is book 1 in the Cardwell Ranch: Legacy Series. Mary Cardwell Savage accidently sent a letter to her ex, Chase. Now, he's back in her life at the same time that her dangerous stalker Can Chase help keep her alive?

In a moment of introspection and weakness, Mary Cardwell Savage wrote an intense letter to her ex Chase Steele. Mary's well-meaning Aunt Stacy actually mailed the letter to him. Chase had actually been at odds and ends in his life. The letter from Mary was all he needed to drop everything and to head back to Big Sky, Montana, with every intent on telling her that he never stopped loving her. Chase is eager to start their lives over again.

However, after a little too much to drink one night, Chase got caught up with a woman named Fiona. She is now in Big Sky and calls herself Lucy Carson in what proves to be a case of fatal attraction. If she can't have Chase, no one can, especially Mary.

Mary and Chase's relationship happened years before, but Chase broke Mary's heart. He left town sometime after they finished college. Mary spent years wondering why Chase left. Now that he is back can she bury her pain and give him a seocnd chance? What about Lucy Carson and her dangerous activities that just might ruin any chance that Mary and Chase could have towards a happy future? Then there is the fact that just before Chase showed up Mary had agreed to begin dating one of the town's deputies named Dillon Ramsey. Not only must Mary decide who she wants to date, what about Dillon? Will he simply step aside?

Steel Resolve gets this series a great jump start, introducing a new generation while bringing back some characters from the Cardwell Ranch series from years ago, most notably Mary's parents, her father Marshal Hud Savage and mother Dana.

Many thanks to Harlequin Intrigue and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Steel Resolve is the first installment in the Montana Legacy series. It was a great introduction to a small town in Montana, Big Sky. Mary and Chase were in love but Chase needed to find himself and Mary didn’t see it that way she saw it as him running away and not fighting for her. Now Chase is ready to come back and fight for Mary but a woman has made it very difficult for him and has obstacles to overcome before making it back to Big Sky. Mary is done waiting for Chase so she decides to move on with her life and start dating. I loved that this story didn’t just have one plot but several plots and that made it so interesting. I knew that the crazy woman that was infatuated with Chase was going to be trouble but I don’t think Chase knew in how much danger he had put Mary in. I felt bad for Fiona because she had a rough childhood with what happened with her stepfather and stepbrothers, she just needed lots of help. In the end Mary and Chase or going to have to fight for their love and together they would not only overcome a crazy person but with her help Chase would finally find out who his father was. I can’t wait to read the rest of the books in this wonderful series.

This book was so entertaining. I was drawn into the story from the beginning and was involved until the end. The characters were complex and interesting. I found the story to be well paced and engrossing throughout the whole book. I was invested in the couple throughout the book and felt all the emotions through both the highs and lows of the story.The side characters were such an integral part of this story as well. This is the love story i needed to read at this time. If you want an entertaining and well written book this is it for you

A second chance romance with a deranged stalker on the loose. The suspense was unpredictable at times and the some of the characters are not who they pretend to be. Definitely a great read.

This isn’t the first book I’ve read by this author whom I normally love however I think this just isn’t the book for me. My main issue is the book was laid out in the first couple of pages and that the suspense was just laid out for the reader as opposed to being built up. I also just found the antagonist to be a bit ridiculous and almost a caricature of a “crazy stalker ex”.

So I thought this book was going to be more suspenseful but to me, it was a lot of fluff and a lot of stuff that didn't need to be in it to be able to develop the characters more. Mary Savage never got over Chase and one day in a moment of weakness she sent him a letter that changed everything and brought a stalker to her town. There were subplots and things that just didn't really add to the book. I still gave it 3 stars s the book was written well and I could see everything going on it wasn't told to me. So all in all it was a good book.

Montana cowboy, second chance for romance, and danger all bring a page turning tale from an author I always enjoy.

Ebook from netgalley and publishers with thanks . Opinions are entirely my own words.

In Steel Resolve we meet Chase (who is occasionally called ‘Chance’ in my Netgalley copy and I hope they fixed that up somewhere along the line, although I think Chance/Chase are both stupid made up names) who is in love with heroine Mary despite the fact they broke up a few years previous. Chase subsequently left town (supposedly a small town in Montana called Big Sky) to look after his sick mother. With his mother's passing, Chase decides to return to Big Sky with the plan to once again woo Mary.

This romantic plot was unfortunately really weak. Most of Chase and Mary’s scenes consist of him saying ‘I really do love you and I’m going to stay here in town until you realise this is true’ which, unfortunately, comes out a little creepy and stalkerish in several scenes.

There’s two mystery/suspense plots in the book. The first is Mary’s new boyfriend being a cattle rustler. The second is a one-night-stand of Chase’s turning out to be a psychopathic stalker. Having two mystery plots gave the book a bit of a disjointed feel. I suspect that neither was strong enough to carry a book by itself, hence the use of two. I think it would have been better if maybe Daniels had just added more details to one of the plots and lost the other completely.

Daniels doesn’t stop with the romance plus two mystery plots either. She also throws in Chase searching for his dad. This could have been an integral part of the plot but, instead, it is a bit of a weird jumble squeezed in between the other three storylines. (It also showed Chase to be a bit of an ass which, I would have imagined, wasn’t Daniels’s intention!)

Chase and Mary have very little chemistry and the town of Big Sky, which is apparently going to be the setting for a series, didn’t capture my interest much. There's far too much written from the point of view of the two villains and the ending was too rushed to be suspenseful. And maybe it's best that I don't get started when it comes to the whole evil whore vs worthy virgin depiction of the female characters…

I think my earlier descriptive word of ‘disjointed’ really sums up this book. I’m imagining Daniels just plucking out some stuff from her ‘ideas’ notebook and shoving them together to satisfy the publisher’s wishes for another book on the market asap.

Maybe 2 out of 5

This book wasn’t for me. The writing didn’t flow at all and the storyline plot was laid out within the first 5 pages. Fiona/Lucy was created to include every trope of a crazy stalker and some of her actions seemed outlandish.

Chase Steel coming back to Montana to reclaim his love turns into a dangerous game. A very well written book. Suspense, Romance and a good story line. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Kept me to the edge of my seat all through out the read.

Mystery, intrigue and it totally brings everything that you would expect from the author. If you love her books, you will love this one. Short, tense, throwing suspense in your face like grenades. I loved every minute of it.

3.5 Stars!

Chase is heading back to Montana determined to win back the love of his life. Mary is still heartbroken after Chase left Montana to go find himself. She has decided that it's finally time to move on. When they see each other again and feel the same spark, what will happen? Especially with all the obstacles that they are facing.

I did enjoy reading this book. It was short and fun and cute. But I felt like there was just too much that it was trying to do in such a short amount of time. There were cattle rustlers, a creepy deputy, a killer stalker, and Chase was trying to find his father. I think that with only one or two of these plot devices, the story would have been smoother. I liked both Mary and Chase and I liked the glimpses I got of the other people in their lives, but I wish I had gotten more. I think this book was trying to solve all of the problems and that really took away from what it could have been. Each of the story points deserved more time devoted to them than they got. I did have a good time while reading this one and I look forward to reading more from B.J. Daniels in the future.

*eARC provided in exchange for an honest review*

A totally new author to me and a book I was willing to read courtesy of netgalley. Chase Steel is a cowboy out of his home state after leaving because his mother was ill. Not with the woman he loved due to a kiss he shared with someone else. A one night stand turns into crazy as the woman in question starts to make him hers. Going home to the woman he loves is on the cards but he doesn’t realise that his and Mary’s lives are in danger as the crazy woman follows him through the states to take care of her love rival. Bodies pile up and it’s a race against time before more bodies are found. A great read and although it comes from the stand point of a few characters I found it easy to read.

I think this just isn’t the book or author for me. My main issue is that the suspense was just laid out for the reader as opposed to being built up over the course of the book. I also just found the antagonist to be a bit ridiculous and almost a caricature of a “crazy stalker ex”.

Crazy female stalker....Steel Resolve is a clean romance of second chances in spite of everything else going on around you.
Chase and Mary had been together before Chase moved away. He's back, but someone followed him...

Let me start by admitting to being a fan of B.J. Daniels, romantic suspense novels and anything at all about cowboys, so the blurb for this novel rang my chimes. Add in a couple of murders, a second chance at love, and I'm there. Sadly, this novel, while it was an okay read, wasnt't one of Ms. Daniels' best novels, and I can only give it a 3 start rating.

Mary Cardwell Savage is the heroine in this novel, although she really seems to be more of a victim than a heroine. Chase Steel, the hero, was the love of her life--they met and fell in love in high school at age 15, but at age 24, when Mary was expecting a proposal from Chase, he up and left town to "find himself," breaking Mary's heart and his own, but fulfilling his need to sow some wild oats, and become a man--yet a man who had no clue and was desperate to discover who his father was, and who he'd blamed his entire life for the fact that his mother worked herself to death to feed and keep a roof over his head, while his father abandoned his then 17-year-old pregnant mother and left her to fend for herself and her infant son. His mother's recent death, and the discovery of a carton containing some pages from her diary, are the catalyst that brings Chase, who was working as a carpenter in Arizona at the time, back home, to the girl he left behind, and a mission to find out who fathered him.

Unfortunately, a rather drunken Chase hooked up with a woman, Fiona Barkley, at a barbecue at the home of his boss, ended up sleeping with her, and had no idea that this woman was a deranged stalker, one who became instantly convinced Chase was her soulmate, and that they were destined to be together forever. Chase had told her at the outset that he was in love with another woman and that he planned to return home and marry her if he could get her to forgive him for leaving. But Fiona is very much like the heroine in the film, Fatal Attraction, undeterred by reality, and unashamed of repeatedly breaking into Chase's apartment, where she finds a letter from Mary in Chase's sock drawer, reads it, and starts plotting and planning to get rid of Mary, and make Chase pay for leaving her for another woman.

Mary, who is sick and tired of pining for Chase for years, finally starts dating one of her father's deputies, Dillon Ramsey, much to her sheriff father's dismay, since he doesn't entirely like or trust Dillon, only hiring him as a favor to a friend, and although Dylan seemed nice enough to Mary at the outset, he's got a dark past as well as prior convictions, and when Chase finally returns to Big Sky, Montana, Mary, who still loves Chase, continues to date Dylan, and no longer seems to know her own mind. It was at this point that I began to actively dislike her. From this point of the novel on, Mary can't make up her mind about whether or not to give Chase another chance, but her waffling made little sense to me, because for someone who claims to still want to be with the love of her life, she sure has a funny way of showing it. Yes, she had reason not to trust Chase out of fear of him leaving her again, but even after he flat out tells her he's been in love with her all along, and except for his drunken one-nighter with Fiona, who is now missing and presumed dead when she disappears from town and her car in found in the river, Chase has remained faithful to Mary all along. His delay in responding to Mary's letter is explained by Chase, who tells her that he wanted to see if Mary would forgive him and be willing to start over with him, a message he wanted to deliver in person. As he's packing his truck to leave, Fiona attempts to kill him, but after fending her off, and while Chase is gathering the last of his belongings inside, Fiona sabotages his truck, which now needs a new engine and delays him from returning home.

Meanwhile, Fiona, now calling herself Lucy, after faking her own death, has had plastic surgery, gotten colored contact lenses, dyes her hair and moves to Chase's home town, where she gets a job as a barista, after killing the current one in a late night hit and run, and then moves into the vacant apartment across the street from the coffee shop, in a building that Mary owns, works out of, and which she was planning to rent to the now dead barista who Fiona killed, and quickly insinuating herself into Mary's life, while planning to kill her too, to punish Chase for leaving her.

Fiona is clearly demented, and we're given some reasons for her insane behavior, but I had fewer problems accepting Fiona/Lucy as a deranged, vengeful and murderous stalker than I did in accepting wishy-washy Mary, who is treated like gossamer by everyone, and who seems to have virtually no emotional depth whatsoever, and who doesn't seem too eager to welcome back the the man she's claimed to be in love with for more than a decade. Perhaps it's me, but I've always felt that you either love someone or you don't, and if you don't love or trust them, why continue to keep them dangling on a string, which is exactly the way she treats poor Chase--the only sympathetic character in this novel, in this reader's opinion.

The are more nefarious goings on as well in Big Sky, cattle rustling being one of them, and more murder and mayhem to follow in this novel, but what didn't sit well with me was the fact that we got to see more of the workings of Fiona/Lucy's devious and warped mind and emotions than we did of Chase and Mary's, who are, after all, the hero and heroine of this novel. I'm also used to a little more heat in Ms. Daniels' novels than there was in this one, which was pretty much void of anything more than a couple of kisses, and Fiona/Lucy's insistence that she spent a meaningful and sex-filled night in Chases's bed--something he doubts ever actually happened later in the novel.

While this novel wasn't an entirely bad read, Ms. Daniels is a talented writer, it wasn't a really great or believable novel one either, and it was easy to see where it was headed from the outset. Having read many of Ms. Daniels' previous novels, I can say with confidence that this was not her best work by far. It lacked emotional depth, character development of the two main characters and a far less HEA abbreviated ending.

I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.

I've never read this author before and I haven't read a Harlequin Intrigue book in years. The story was interesting and I was actually surprised that it was pretty clean... I stopped reading a lot of Harlequin books due to descriptive scenes and language. Thank you B.J. Daniels for writing a book that doesn't need sex scenes to show romance!

I'll have to check out more books by this author and even check out more Harlequin Intrigue books!


I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley on behalf of the Publisher and was under no obligation to post a favorable review.