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Abandoned by Booklikes

Government drone by day and book lover and geek girl by night!

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Homecoming Ranch

Homecoming Ranch - Julia London I have never read a novel by Julia London prior to this novel and I think I am going to pass on the other two novels in this series. Though I was initially intrigued by the plot of this novel there were way too many cardboard characters floating around in this novel. I am sure Ms. London will flesh them out further in the subsequent novels, but I found myself growing bored and then impatient with the entire storyline.

This novel has two main protagonists and also an omnipotent narrator which is also a character in the story. I don't know if Ms. Londo plans on keeping that in place for the next novel (omnipotent narrator) but I hope not since it took me out of the story everytime she re-introduced him that way.

One of the main protagonists is Madeline Pruett. Growing up poor and raised by a selfish single mother she has grown up cautious of men and wanting to make sure everything in her world stays fixed. Contacted by her father's estate lawyer and told she has inherted a ranch in Colorado with two other half sisters sets her perfectly ordered world askew. The second protagnist is Luke Kendrick. Luke has dealt for years with his families troubles and only now has managed to get his life back on track. Madeline and Luke meet cute on a mountain pass as she travels to Colorado.

The omnipotent narrator is actually Luke's younger brother, Leo.

I think that if the novel had focused on these two main characters and all of the background characters who are going to come into play in the next two novels I would have liked it more than I did. For example, Leo has his own backstory which I was interested in but felt as if he took up way too much of the main storyline's focus. Also having his occasional narrations on other characters in the novel just kept throwing me out of the story.

Another issue I have is how Ms. London portrayed the other two sisters in this trilogy. We get introduced to Madeline's half sisters, Libby and Emma. Since I already know that Ms. London has written this series as a trilogy I am assuming the next two books will deal with them. I can then somewhat understand why she didn't want them the main focus of this novel. However, the little bit we get about Libby and Emma was just not enough. Frankly I was getting so annoyed with how Libby and Emma were written and thought one was just way too mysterious for my liking and the other a jerk. They rarely interacted with Madeline and there were barely any scenes with the three women together. I of course was not expecting any 'we are family' moments in the first book in the series (it would have been unrealistic) but there should have been some bare minimum scenes together in order to flesh out the characters.

Ms. London can write and I liked the action taking place in this small town in Colorado. I just felt that the above and how certain loose strings were never really tied up somewhat aggravating.

Please note that I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program.