Bobby Cameron trains horses. He has the magic touch, and owners all over the world pay for his experience. He needs the cash. The ranch where he grew up is bleeding money, and his father’s cowboy traditions didn’t do it any favors. Bobby is a cowboy as well, but he can see the need for a new direction.

Milly Lockwood Groves is a British girl whose father owns a highly respected stud (a horse breeding facility) and some of the best stallions in the business. Forbidden to ride since a horrific accident, Milly is suffocating under her parents’ overprotective ways. She wants nothing more than a career in riding racehorses.

When Bobby travels to England for a job, he stays with Milly’s family. Impressed by the seventeen-year-old’s tenacity and astounding ability around horses, he invites her to his ranch in California, where he plans to open a racing stable.

Milly’s whirlwind career in the States is marked by love, betrayal, and the arrival of a determined enemy. With her innocence and integrity at stake, where will her choices take her? While this book is about many things, it is primarily Milly’s coming-of-age story. She begins as a naïve girl and emerges something quite different. Her journey ranges from exciting to outrageous to crushing.

Aside from her tale, the reader is introduce to a heady cast of characters, including an unassuming ranch family, a poisonous rival from Milly’s childhood, a lecherous investor, and a ruthless billionaire and his quiet daughter. Despite the large cast, it’s not difficult to tell the subplots apart. Each is different and stars unique characters, all of whom invariably affect Milly and Bobby.

This story is intriguing, although the main characters all have flaws that tarnish their images. From the beginning, Bobby is a cold womanizer, and Milly makes mistakes that rival the best of them. That’s the beauty of this book. The reader’s journey with the characters shows how consequences can explode in the least expected ways, and how people can move past the worst of it.

Although this is a heck of story—one that would make a good movie—the author’s confusing point of view shifts can pull the reader out of the story in order to figure out which character is thinking or doing what. It is for this reason that Showdown does not get a perfect score, but it is definitely above average and worth your time.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
5-19-2006

Back to "B" - Review look-up by Author

Back to "S" - Review look-up by Title

Back to "4-Books" - Review look-up by Rating

Back to "Fiction" - Review look-up by Genre