This was a strong NO for me.

It was an interesting turning, the world in this book, more the setting, it was new and really good as a change. It was also very enjoyable to read about the dilemma Ross had about wanting a "whore".

Ok, here comes the trash part in the book, which continues on with the "whore" thing BECAUSE WHY? Every single time Lydia did something Ross didn't like, or made him suspicious and jealous he called her a whore, thought she was a whore and told her she was a whore to her face OFTEN ENOUGH TO WANT TO KILL THE MAN!

For real, Ross is a good character but he was so fucking suspicious all the damn time that it became boring in the end. And Lydia was even worse, because she always forgives him no matter what he does BECAUSE NOBODY HAD BEEN THIS "NICE" TO HER BEFORE..wtf?

Anyway, other than this, the book was really good and I like when authors create a world of their own, the story becomes so much better.

A story of two people brought together out of necessity in a harsh world that has injured them both.

Lydia and Ross meet in less than ideal circumstances on a bound wagon train on its way to Texas. Ross is reeling from the death of his beloved wife during childbirth and as a last resort to avoid losing his newborn son too, allows Lydia, the disreputable looking young woman who was just rescued after giving birth to a stillborn baby, to nurse him.

The two reluctantly agree to help each other out for the duration of the trip, but things are not exactly easy between them. Ross is grieving and angry and takes his frustration out on Lydia, whom he doesn't think highly of at all.

Lydia, whose new circumstances are a great improvement over the life she fled, where she was sexually abused for years before she ended up pregnant and on the run, is happy tending the baby boy in her care and his hostile father.

Ross, who has secrets of his own, namely the fact that he used to be an outlaw who was left for dead before he changed his name and life, is more than a little disturbed by the attraction he feels towards Lydia, especially so soon after his wife's death.

Their relationship is fraught with tension and pain, but after they eventually decide to make their forced temporary marriage a real one, they slowly heal each other of past hurts and fall deeply in love.

Unfortunately, both their pasts come back to haunt them and they have to confront them once and for all before getting their happily ever after.

A heavy story that was difficult to read at parts, with characters adhering to a harsh world's rules and exhibiting behaviors that were off-putting at times.

The series continues with Another Dawn and Jake, aka Bubba's story next, but it will be a long while before I read it, if ever. Apart from the fact that it features one of my least favorite tropes, a couple with a big age difference, it was also a bit spoiled since I unintentionally read about Ross's future, which apparently includes 20 years of happiness but has a tragic end, something I do not like one bit.

As a lover of Sandra Brown's later thrillers/romantic suspense I was interested to go back to the 80's when she started writing. And from the cover to what's in between this is bodice ripper territory! What a blast from the past for as a naughty teenager this is the type of book I devoured secretly sandwiched between more respectable tomes back in the day.

Honestly for nostalgia's sake I quite enjoyed this although reading it with today's eyes there was some really unpalatable themes especially the one involving  rape in marriage . There is a whole feminist discussion there concerning the impact of such books but I'm not going to debate that here as I put it into the category of it is book written in a certain time and thankfully we have moved on from that.

3.5 stars

Not a bad story of a wagon train headed for Texas to claim their homesteads, but a better story of human interaction. It illustrates how many decisions were made for purely practical reasons. In this story a man who loses his wife in childbirth leaving him with an infant son marries a young woman without a husband who had given birth to a stillborn. She could nurse the baby thus saving his life. There was no such thing as a trip to Target to pick up a case of formula. It was a hard life and people did what they had to do to survive. The action in the story revolves around these two characters. It isn’t the best story she’s written but it was worth reading.

Unrated. Not really into western's such as this. I love Sandra Brown, but will stick with current suspense.
THIS SUMMARY/REVIEW WAS COPIED FROM OTHER SOURCES AND IS USED ONLY AS A REMINDER OF WHAT THE BOOK WAS ABOUT FOR MY PERSONAL INTEREST. ANY PERSONAL NOTATIONS ARE FOR MY RECOLLECTION ONLY
**
20 year old Lydia Bryant is found on the verge of death after delivering her stillborn child in the woods, craving the oblivion of death more than her next breathe. Her savior comes in the form of two teenage boys from a nearby travelling caravan, whose mother Ma Langston nurses Lydia back to health.

32 year old Ross Coleman is a man who has a dangerous past. Married to Victoria, a lady from genteel society who is carrying his child, Ross is forever grateful to the woman who shares his life because Victoria accepted him into the elite circle of which Ross doesn't feel he is worthy of. The bastard child of a whore, Ross is handsome and dangerous, a heady package that is liable to make any woman with even half her ovaries intact swoon.

When Victoria dies in child labor giving Ross his son Lee who refuses to be fed from any other source and is on the verge of death himself, Ross is forced to take in Lydia to take care of Lee, a woman who raises his hackles because he thinks Lydia to be a woman who is no better off than his own mother. But even from the first moment when eyes of green clashes with that of amber, there is no turning back for either of these two whose undeniable attraction towards one another could practically be cut through with a knife.

It is an interesting passage that Lydia and Ross takes towards happily ever after, each guarding the secrets of their past with a vengeance. Lydia who refuses to bow down to any man after the constant abuse she has suffered in the past and Ross who vows that he would always honor the memory of his genteel and beautiful wife Victoria finds themselves in a battle of wills that is no match for the hunger that each inspire in the other.

**
The premise is already an uncomfortable one at the beginning. In the opening scene, Lydia is giving birth to a stillborn baby conceived through rape via her stepbrother. She's ready to die and okay with the fact that the baby is dead. A couple of boys from a passing wagon train stumble upon her and the baby, and their ma and pa take her in. Coincidentally, Ross Coleman's wife dies in labor a few days later and Lydia is needed as a milk cow to keep the baby alive.

Ross is an unbelievable ass. He is dealing with a horrific past and a shaky, scary present, and yet she maintains her dignity and poise. Ross just turns into a mean, nasty person. He loves calling her a whore, treating her like a second class citizen, making her feel like a burden to him, and constantly letting her know how she could never measure up to his dead wife.

The cherry on the top of his degradation of Lydia is when he rapes her...literally holds her down, bruises her wrists, fucks her raw, and does this while she's screaming and crying out in pain, begging him to stop. There's no forced seduction here, nothing titillating or pleasing about this encounter. And yet somehow, when Lydia...who has never known sex to be anything but rape...thinks about this encounter the next day with tenderness and longing.

I've been on an American Western historical kick lately, so I've been looking for books in that genre. I like Sandra Brown's suspense romance books, so I thought I'd give this one a try. What a mistake!
First of all, I've read the Wheel of Time books, but Ms. Brown has nothing on Robert Jordan when it comes to mentioning breasts. Yes, the heroine Lydia is a wet nurse, but it seemed like every paragraph had a mention of her prominent breasts, yearning nipples, etc. She makes Mr. Jordan look like a novice when he only mentions pushing arms under her breasts instead of 'impudent nipples.'
The story itself is pretty weak. Ross, the hero, is pretty unlikeable throughout the book, and poor Lydia needs some severe counseling in dealing with him. She's a rape victim who's abused again and again - just ugh. The rest of the characters on the wagon train are pretty banal, and the villain is just a caricature of evil.
This is not a book I'd recommend at all.

No está mal y no paran de ocurrir cosas que entretienen. Quizás la parte final se enreda demasiado. Los personajes secundarios también me han parecido muy interesantes, Moses, Bubba. Entretenido

n  Nuestra reseña en A la cama con... un libron

Me lo he pasado bomba leyendo este libro

I liked this book very much, however I reckon it was epic when I was younger. Still you can't go wrong with Sandra Brown.

Although I am not a fan of Brown’s early books as a writer given the one-liner plots and oodles of misogyny, I must appreciate Sunset Embrace for deviating from that path, if only slightly.

The novel traces the journey of the caravan moving towards Texas of which the female lead Lydia inadvertently becomes a part of. Also, it is a welcome change to see the story focus not just on the leads, but the other characters as well.

That said, too much emphasis has been given on Lydia’s breasts (no point skirting around that). I’m all for breastfeeding, but the effects of it and the actual act and the author’s fixation on everything that surrounds it, makes one peevish.

Also, rape is rape. The act doesn’t deserve absolution just because it happens at the hands of a remorseful male lead, even if the female at the receiving end of it is dim-witted enough to consider it pleasurable.

Raw and beautiful. It doesn't shy away from dirty side of humanity. It showcases inane goodness of humans. It delves into the constant conflict one has over the matters of heart. Both H and h showed growth throughout the story overcoming their pasts as well as present circumstances. The book always kept the sexual angst at the edge through the first half before fully exploring the passion between the two protagonists in the second half.