Diana Palmer is one of my favorite authors, and I enjoyed WYOMING BRAVE, which is the sixth book in her WYOMING MEN series and I’ve read them all!

There are alpha males too numerous to count and those that are on the right and wrong side of the law. Ren runs his ranch in Wyoming and has issues especially where women are concerned. It started with his mother, whom he has been estranged from for many years, and includes his ex-fiance, Angie, who was only after his money. Enter shy and scared Merrie, who is a friend of his brother’s, and what’s Ren to think? Is she Randall’s woman or really just a friend? Is she as innocent as she makes herself out to be? There are sparks between them, but since they aren’t usually on the same page there are quite a few tense moments. Many end up in tears or anger.

The book includes a cast of family and friends, lots of law enforcement on all different levels, ex-military and bad guys. Palmer is terrific at adding beautiful scenery as well. My emotions were engaged from the first page to the last, and the characters were very complex but with a depth to them. I enjoyed that characters we’ve met before are included in this book and kept the connection between the books alive. Merrie and her sister, Sari, have a special bond that seems unshakable given all that they’ve had to endure in their lives. There is a wonderful ending with nice closure and a happily ever after. I hope there will be more books in the series since I’d like to visit both Wyoming and Jacobsville, Texas once again and see it through Palmer’s eyes.

I had a very hard time rating this book. There are some fantastic aspects to it, but unfortunately there's a lot that frustrated me about it as well.

Let's start with what I liked:
The characters in general were really good and fun. I especially like how worried and warm hearted they were towards each other. Both Ren and Merrie felt real and honest, especially considering the lot life has given them. I also really enjoyed the animals. There are a lot of ranch books out there that barely even mention the animals, but here they seemed to have personalities and were characters themselves. Finally, the plot. I really enjoyed it, it was fast paced and kept me interested. There wasn't a section I would have removed.

However, there were things I didn't like:
Mostly, it was the repetition. There was a lot of repetition. So much so, that I felt as if the author was almost using it as filler. Not that the novel needed it, considering it's length, but there are only so many times I culd hear Merrie tell her story to someone... and sometimes it was to the same person. You would think that that person would remember such a memorable story, but every time it was almost as if they had met her for the first time. It was frustrating, and in my mind feels like poor editing.
The hitman seemed a little on the stupid side. I read a lot of crime stories, and I'm sorry, but this hitman wasn't top of his game. I can't imagine any author in the crime section that would have kept him so in the dark about everything. He should have been able to get up close and personal with her. The fact that he didn't even know that she had left the ranch after all the comotion in the middle of the night is rediculous.

I've found that reading this author has become really hit-or-miss for me. It won't stop me from reading her, as I still get a kick from her characters, but that being said, it is worth noting for myself that it may not always go the way I like.

Once again Diana Palmer brings us the a sweet, small town romance featuring the Palmer brand of romance. Ms. Palmer stays true to formula in her latest Wyoming installment and there's nothing wrong with that. In this ever changing world it's nice to know you can depend on Diana Palmer to give you a light hearted read. Though her themes are very similar I always enjoy how she comes about solving the light mystery and bringing our hero and heroine together. Even though some elements of the story are not a surprise to her fans, there's a reason we keep coming back to visit the world of Diana Palmer. There's a deep sense of familiarity made even better by the fact that you know you are going to get a glimpse of some of your favorite characters from earlier books. Add in the tried and true romantic elements of the older jaded man and the younger innocent woman and it's sure to be a satisfying light read.
Meredith Grayling, Merrie to her friends, is trying to escape a stalker. When she goes to stay at Ren Colter's ranch she's sure she's made a mistake because Ren seems to hate her on sight. He seems even more dangerous than her stalker, but Merrie agrees to stay for her own protection though who is going to protect her heart from it's desire for Ren. On Ren's part he thinks that Merrie is actually involved with his brother and after the family fortune. He suspects she's another gold digger out to get what she can, little does he know that money is the least of Merrie's problems. Almost too late he realizes there's more to the story than what Ren has been told and if he doesn't pay attention the best thing that's ever happened to him might not be around much longer.

Let me start by admitting to being a die-hard Diana Palmer fan and admit that I've read every book she's ever written, pen names and all, and I couldn't wait to read the sixth and final novel in this series, although I haven't been overly impressed with several of the preceding titles. I'm happy to be able to give this one 4.5 stars.

Wyoming Brave is the story of Merrie (Meredith) Grayling, Isabel's sister, whom we met in an earlier novel, and who, like her younger sister, grew up under the thumb of their incredibly violent and abusive father, and they have the deep physical and mental scars to prove it. He kept them isolated, forbidding friendships, dating, parties, makeup, sleepovers, and all those things teenage girls get to enjoy, and he controlled them with his belt--buckle first. Although her father bribed a doctor to stitch them up when necessary, I found it inconceivable that such severe beatings and broken bones went unnoticed by their teachers who never made an anonymous call to Child Protective Services, regardless of their father's wealth and position, and it's the primary reason I couldn't give this novel a 5-star rating.

Merrie, now 22, is once again being victimized. Her father killed a man's mother, and although her father died of heart attack soon after, the son of the murdered woman put out a hit on her and Isabel, perfectly willing to make the man's two innocent daughters pay the price for their father's sins with their lives.

In an attempt to keep her safe, Merrie is brought to Skyhorn Ranch by Randall Colter, a friend, who shares the ranch with his brother, Ren. At Skyhorn, Randall and his brother breed and sell purebred Black Angus bulls and cows, breeding stock worth millions of dollars and their security system is first-rate. Randall, very much a playboy, spends most of his time traveling and promoting the ranch, while Ren runs the day-to-day operations. When Randall, very much a love 'em and leave 'em playboy, introduces Merrie to Ren, he does so by intimating that she's one of his girlfriends, many of whom he's brought to the ranch, and some of whom Ren had bedded too.

Several months earlier, Ren was two weeks away from marrying one of those women, Angie, who backed out of the engagement and posted her negative reviews of Ren's lovemaking skills on social media. He's hurt, angry, humiliated, and now an avowed woman-hater and not at all pleased to have Merrie dumped on his ranch. Like most of Diana Palmer's heroes, he's tall, dark, handsome, stern and imposing and quite harsh in his treatment of Merrie, who is an utterly innocent, abused and scarred, 22-year-old virgin, who is 14 years his junior.

There are many close calls, red herrings, and a great deal of angst in this novel, and we again get to visit some of the Jacobsville cast of characters from Ms. Palmer's previous Long, Tall Texans series, when Ren's attempt to have sex with Merrie and his verbally abusive remarks when she rebuffs his advances ends with her running back to Jacobsville in tears, a move that nearly costs her her life, and devastates Ren.

While we can always count on Ms. Palmer to deliver a HEA ending, how she gets there in this novel worked very well for me. Additionally, although I love her Jacobsville novels, the more they involved drug cartels and drug smuggling operations, the less time she spent on her characters, and, subsequently, the less I found myself enjoying them in recent years. In Wyoming Brave, the Diana Palmer whose books I became instantly addicted to back in the 1980s, has returned to writing the character-driven romances I loved. This is one of them.

Wyoming Brave is a lovely romance, but not your typical cowboy/western love story. Hiding from a contract killer seeking revenge, Merrie Grayling is forced to take refuge at a ranch in Wyoming owned by Ren Colter. Both Ren and Merrie are wounded souls; Merrie, a victim of abuse at the hands of her father and a restrictive childhood, she is naive and timid; Ren is fighting his own demons, jilted by an ex-fiancée, hurt by his mother, Ren is resentful and hardened. Ren can't trust his growing feelings for Merrie, not believing she's as innocent as she appears. Merrie, an innocent in so many ways, is unsure if she can escape the scars of her past, and is conflicted by her feelings for Ren. Can these two mend their wounded hearts and learn to love and trust each other, or are the scars too deep? Theirs is a sweet but passionate romance. This book is the sixth of a series, and the author does a good job of giving the reader the back story. At times characters were introduced that must have been in the previous books, and, since I hadn't read the first 5 books, I felt like I was missing a lot of details. If you read and enjoyed the other books in this series, you are sure to love this one. I rated this book 3.5 stars; it was a good story with interesting characters, but reading book 6 in a series takes away some of the enjoyment.

My Rating:

3.5

Favorite Quotes:

Both glistening black eyes were on Merrie, making comments that he didn’t even have to put into words.

I can’t image people who don’t eat grits… It’s the seeds of barbaricism!

Men aren’t perfect… Well, I am… But you can’t hold the rest of the male population up to such exacting high standards, right?


My Review:

I struggled more than bit getting through this one, as it just wasn’t my cup of tea, although some of my difficulties may have been due to picking up a book so late in the series as the backstory seemed overly complicated and the unfolding storyline was extremely far-fetched. The occasional hints of steam and all too rare and brief moments of levity were highly welcomed to break up the angst and heaviness of the melodrama, which, I will readily admit, just aren’t on my list of favorite things.

Diana Palmer is a prolific author. She has written over 100 novels. That's a huge accomplishment in the publishing world. She was even named one of the top one hundred romance writers in America and for some reason I never reviewed one of her books, though I have read several. The last few years her books have followed a more prescribed pattern that allows the reader some comfort in knowing what to expect, but unusual and sensitive characters are able to transform each book into a separate adventure. Her latest novel in the Wyoming Men series, Wyoming Brave is somewhat of a continuation from her previous novel Defender, a part of the Long, Tall, Texan's series. The crossover aspect of this book was intriguing and allows readers who have read each series to appreciate the other. A very good book, by a master in the western romance subgenre.

What I liked:

I'm a sucker for a brooding hero and Diana Palmer does not disappoint with Ren Colter. This guy has alpha male written all over him. He's very protective and sexy, if a bit overbearing at times. Ren has a broken heart that has turned him hard as stone and cold as ice. I loved his very realistic and hard nosed approach to life, but it was certainly hard to handle in the area of love. When he is faced with an innocent woman in need of his protection he relents but not very quickly and not very easily. Merrie and Ren don't find love at first sight, but it definitely grows on them.

I don't usually go for the sweet, pure heroine. I like independent, strong female characters, but there is something to be said for innocence. That idea of first love and the first sexual experience of a woman was enticing in this one and I found myself very taken with Merrie. She had a great moral compass and she had been through some tragedy in her life. To have her first experience at love with a man like Ren, experienced, wealthy, and very hesitant was maybe not the best but it was satisfying to see him let down his guard and let her in. It happened too quickly, I wanted the angst and anticipation to last, but I still loved every second of it.

One of the best parts of this book was the suspense. Merrie has a stalker, a man determined to end her in one way or another. The story starts out in Defender and ends up in Wyoming Brave. I would advise reading Defender for background on the story and for more insight into Merrie's life. There is everything from passion and love to moral dilemmas and physical danger in this one. Palmer might be known for typical small town romances but this one had a different feel to it. There was a sense of urgency that I don't usually find in her novels. It was a nice change of pace.

What I didn't like:

I have read several of Palmer's romances over the years and have enjoyed them all. However, they often follow a pattern or formula. That is perfect for some readers who want to know what they are getting when they buy a book. But a little tedious for those who want to be surprised. In most of Palmer's books you have an experienced hero and an inexperienced heroine and we do find that here in this book as well. They are usually set in small towns, most usually western in nature. We had all of that here. Her hero's are often alpha male and can be seen as overbearing. We also got that. I think what made this one different for me was the suspenseful nature of the book and I liked the coming of age, innocence of Merrie. Though, the book is similar to Palmer's other offerings I don't think that should deter every reader. Just be aware of it and know what you want to read.

Bottom Line:

I liked this book. It was enjoyable, albeit a little like most others I have read from this author. I liked the story crossover from a previous series and felt like I had something to go on before starting this one. I loved Ren, even though he might seem a little over the top to some. I like that manly man attitude. He was cynical but that paired well with Merrie's innocence and sweetness. Too much of that is just an overload for me. Pick this one up. It's a keeper!

Wyoming Brave isn’t my first Diana Palmer book, but this is book six in the Wyoming Men series, and you just jump right into the middle of the story in chapter one. While this wasn’t quite a stand alone–there were several characters from the Long Tall Texas series of the author’s that make appearances throughout the book and they are very briefly explained–I didn’t have too much trouble figuring out who was who to enjoy this book. With a hero and heroine that are both closed off from other people, but for very different reasons, I enjoyed seeing them blossom as their friendship grew into more throughout Wyoming Brave.

Meredith Grayling has had a hard life for only being twenty-two, with an abusive father who controlled everything that she and her sister did, spoke to, and wore up until the day he died. Suddenly free of his abuse and overbearing rule–and around 400 million dollars richer thanks to a Swiss bank account that her deceased mother had set up for her and her sister, Merrie is now in danger because her father had murdered a woman before he died, and that woman’s son wants revenge. What better way to get revenge on a father than to kill his daughters? But he didn’t know that the father died of a heart attack, and he can’t call off the hitman from jail–a hitman who won’t stop until Merrie is dead and he can count the job completed. So her sister Sari and FBI agent brother-in-law Paul send Merrie to stay at a ranch that has tons of security to protect their bulls from theft since it’s a multi-million dollar business, but Merrie has to contend with one gruff cowboy in order to stay there.

Ren Colter has been closed off emotionally to women since he found his fiancee cheating on him mere weeks before their wedding. But even before then, he’d always been a bit harsh and cynical ever since his mother and father split up and he’d been forced to move with his mother when she’d remarried. After college at Harvard and a stint in the armed forces, Ren returned to the struggling family ranch to help his father turn things around, quickly becoming a premiere cattle breeder. While his younger half-brother Randall was a ladies man, Ren kept to himself and occasionally dealt with the girls that Randall brought home–the vapid, money grubbing, very experienced city slicker types. But Merrie is a completely different type of woman for Randall to keep company with, and Ren is intrigued, but irritated all the same. He’ll make sure that she’s safe on his ranch, but he doesn’t have to be happy that she’s there or make her comfortable.

The slow building romance between innocent artist and animal lover Merrie and older, more experienced Ren was enjoyable, but the many misunderstandings and miscommunications were frustrating. Merrie would tell Ren about the abuse at the hands of her father, only for Ren to act like he didn’t know about it pages later. Intentional or editing issues, I’m not sure. The same thing with the abuse being mentioned happened as well as Ren’s ex-fiancee’s cheating. The multiple mentions in dialogue were quite obvious, and it made it look like the characters just didn’t pay any attention to what the others were saying. With this said, I still was able to read through Wyoming Brave in a few sessions over two days. I was engrossed in their story as well as the unique secondary characters that popped up along the way.

I give Wyoming Brave a four out of five. The settings were very picturesque, especially the ranch in Wyoming with the cattle and horses. Merrie and Ren’s relationship was a slow burn, surrounded by the danger that she was in from a hit man that could strike at any time to make it more intense. I really loved all the characters from the Long Tall Texas series that came into play in last half of the book. Who knew that you could have ranchers, FBI agents, and mafia all in one book? No way could that ever happen in real life, especially with security clearances keeping agents from actually interacting with suspected mafioso, but ignoring the intricate details of how it could actually happen made me really enjoy how they all came together in the end. The strange partnership really worked! I totally want to read more about Cousin Mikey now.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a classic Diana Palmer. Merrie is a young woman who is in danger and falls in love with her protector Ren. Ren is a tyrant who thinks Merrie is her brothers girlfriend. If you are a fan of Diana Palmer you will want to read this book.

I do love a Diana Palmer book! She really has a wonderful way of writing together interesting characters, a little mystery, plenty of romance and a beautiful setting. This book is all of that!

Merrie flees to Wyoming when a hired killer is looking for her. She finds love. ARC from Net Galley.

As always, Palmer gives a swoon worth leading man with an amazing lady! I never bore of her books!