Bequest

Rating:
Summary: Western romance
Review: Gabrielle Antoine has lived a sheltered life in a convent in New Orleans since the age of 5, thinking that her mother had died a long time ago. She receives a message one day to say that she has been left a house in Central City, Colorado by a person unknown to her.

She heads out to Colrado to discover more about her past only to find out that she has been left a brothel by her mother who had only died recently from a shot in the back. There she meets the ruggedly handsome business partner of her mother, Jordan Hays. A loner and drifter who hides his secret painful past.

Together they run the brothel, with him in charge of the gaming rooms and her playing at the piano. Gabrielle wants to turn the brothel into a school and find decent jobs for the girls who work at the brothel. But in order to this she must keep the brothel open a bit longer so that she can buy out Jordan's share of the business. As time goes by Gabrielle and Jordan find themselves being attracted to the other. Only Jordan keeps repelling Gabrielle's love for him as he knows that he will not stay long and will leave Central City and Gabrielle's life forever.

Lurking in the background is danger in the form of Doug Slaughter. He wants to get his hands on Gabrielle's brothel and eventually on the gold mines that belonged to Gabrielle's mother. Together Jordan and Gabrielle fight the ruthless Doug Slaughter time and time again, risking their lives.

This was an intense and exciting romance set in the West with danger lurking in every corner. As always the hero has a painful past which prevents him from loving again but with the soft coaxing of the heroine he opens up and sees a new and more hopeful world. In return the heroine finds her body and senses awoken by the dark an mysterious hero. This was good book to read overall. The plot was well thought out and the romance with lots of tension. This is my second book by Candice Proctor and so far I have not been disappointed. I will be looking for more books by this author in the future.

Lea Ling Tsang

Rating:
Summary: The best romance I have read in years
Review: I love this book! Wonderful, richly developed characters (and a hero to die for!), evocative descriptions, a real conflict (as opposed to silly squables). Wonderful! I can't wait to read Ms. Proctor's next.

Rating:
Summary: You won't be able to put it down
Review: I really liked this book, they had real problems to overcome not just silly misunderstandings you will really love this book

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful love story.
Review: One of the things I liked most about this book was the characters. They were always honest with each other. They shared their pasts, they talked about things, they understood and accepted each other as they were. I really liked that. Fear and pain kept them from committing throughout the book not misunderstandings.

This isn't a comfortable book to read. It's set in a whorehouse and is filled with violent, dirty images. The author writes so well you can see and smell the countryside and feel the moments of tranquillity the hero shares with the heroine but on the downside you also see, smell and experience the filth and vile acts that she doesn't shy away from writing about. It's a rough, realistic and oftentimes heartbreaking depiction of the lives of woman who sell their bodies for various reasons. But throughout it all the love story remains tender and loving.

This isn't a story I'd normally read. I like light and funny these days. The dialogue isn't witty, and I honestly didn't like the plot but for some odd reason I could not put the book down. Never did I feel the urge to start skimming. I know why too, it's because I cared about these people. I liked the hero and heroine, their honesty, their motivations, and their blossoming feelings were all so real and so raw. And two of the sympathetically drawn secondary characters really tugged at my heart. I wouldn't want to read this type of plot often, that's for sure, but I do recommend this book because the love story is well developed and believable.

Rating:
Summary: A gritty & not always pleasant to read book but heartugging
Review: One of the things I liked most about this book was the characters. They were always honest with each other. They shared their pasts, they talked about things, they understood and accepted each other as they were. I really liked that. Fear and pain kept them from committing throughout the book not misunderstandings.

This isn't a comfortable book to read. It's set in a whorehouse and is filled with violent, dirty images. The author writes so well you can see and smell the countryside and feel the moments of tranquillity the hero shares with the heroine but on the downside you also see, smell and experience the filth and vile acts that she doesn't shy away from writing about. It's a rough, realistic and oftentimes heartbreaking depiction of the lives of woman who sell their bodies for various reasons. But throughout it all the love story remains tender and loving.

This isn't a story I'd normally read. I like light and funny these days. The dialogue isn't witty, and I honestly didn't like the plot but for some odd reason I could not put the book down. Never did I feel the urge to start skimming. I know why too, it's because I cared about these people. I liked the hero and heroine, their honesty, their motivations, and their blossoming feelings were all so real and so raw. And two of the sympathetically drawn secondary characters really tugged at my heart. I wouldn't want to read this type of plot often, that's for sure, but I do recommend this book because the love story is well developed and believable.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful love story.
Review: The Bequest was a wonderful love story. A bit on the unusual side because she takes us into the world of brothels in this historical romance. Jordan Hays is every woman's dream; sensitive and caring yet rugged and dangerous. Gabrielle was a wonderful heroine for him and I really enjoyed how the author brought these two together and how they genuinely cared for each other. This is only the second book by Proctor that I've read and I am looking forward to getting her other work and reading that also. A truly amazing love story.

Rating:
Summary: A WONDERFUL, UNUSUAL BOOK
Review: This novel has it all--sensuality, danger, mystery, and a beautiful love story, all told in Candice Proctor's wonderfully evocative prose. The descriptions above really don't do justice to this story. Gabrielle Antoine is a convent raised orphan desperate to learn more about the mother she only dimly remembers. When she arrives in Central City, Colorado, she discovers more than she can handle: that her mother was a brothel owner and has only recently died, leaving her whorehouse to Gabrielle and to her mother's partner, a dark, dangerous, haunted man named Jordan Hays. Horrified, Gabrielle can think of nothing but leaving town and selling the house. But the evil nature of the prospective buyer and a sense of responsibility to the "girls" changes her mind.

What follows is a story of the corruption of innocence, deftly written by a master hand. Gabrielle's noble plans to help the "girls" find decent jobs and turn the house into a school are complicated by her desire to learn more about her mother and her mother's backgroud. An intelligent but fundamentally innocent and sheltered woman, Gabrielle must come to understand sin and human weakness and her own awakening sensuality against the decadent background of a 19th century whorehouse. The tortured hero, Jordan Hays, is gorgeous. Bound by his own noble nature and a promise made to a dying friend, all he wants to do is run away from Gabrielle, from the feelings she threatens to reawaken in him, and from what he knows will be the inevitable result of her growing physical attraction to him.

There is so much more to this book--wonderful secondary characters, a dangerous mystery, and the beauty of the Colorado Rockies, so wonderfully depicted. Candice Proctor writes with the power and intensity of Laura Kinsale, and the emotional depth of LaVyre Spencer. This is a wonderful book. Don't miss it.