For The Record by Regina Jennings (review by Cathy)

About the book:

Betsy Huckabee might be a small-town girl, but she has big-city dreams. Writing for her uncle’s newspaper will never lead to independence, and the bigger newspapers don’t seem interested in the Hart County news. Trying a new approach, Betsy pens a romanticized serial for the ladies’ pages, and the new deputy provides the perfect inspiration for her submissions. She’d be horrified if he read her breathless descriptions of him, but these articles are for a newspaper far away. No one in Pine Gap will ever know.

Deputy Joel Puckett didn’t want to leave Texas, but this job in tiny Pine Gap is his only shot at keeping his badge. With masked marauders riding every night, his skills and patience are tested, but even more challenging is the sassy journalist lady chasing him.

 

My review:

From the first chapter when Deputy Joel Puckett drops his saddlebags on the depot platform in Pine Gap, Missouri, and the nonexistent warm welcome to town he receives, I thought I would adore this book.  By the third chapter, I knew that I would absolutely adore this book!

Things really don’t get any better for him, especially after he’s given a pony instead of a horse.  There’s a quite a discussion between him and Mayor Walters over that which gave me some laughs.

Betsy Huckabee is a very strong willed young lady and very comical.  Once she decides to write her romantic serial for ladies’ pages, and Joel provides her with the basis of her male character she needs to spend more time with him.  He would be   perfect because she thought, “He was as handsome as Adam on the first day of creation”.  I loved their interactions throughout the entire book.

The secondary characters were all rather interesting and I liked masked marauders nightly rides.  I’ve never read anything like that and I found it very entertaining.

This is a well written and perfectly paced story that is heavy on action.  The characters are well developed and the author adds the right amount of humor.  This is one that I will want to read again and highly recommend to readers of clean western-romance novels.

I received a complimentary copy of For The Record from the publisher and have given my honest opinion.