Single mom Julie Donavan is looking for a place to start over. What she finds after buying a small house on five acres is nothing short of a nightmare.

Single dad “Lucky Griffin” Luckadeau has been crossing horns with his elderly neighbor for years. But when his daughter, Annie, decides she wants the new little girl who lives on the feuding property to be her friend, or better yet her sister, the sparks fly.

These two stubborn hotheads, who irritate each other beyond endurance, refuse to admit that it’s fate that brought them together. And running from the inevitable is only going to bring a double dose of misery…

Getting Lucky – Carolyn Brown (#3 Lucky Series)
January 5, 2010
Contemporary/Western Romance
Paperback, 416 pages
Sourcebooks

Julie Donovan wants a change. After years of not being able to get pregnant and an unhappy marriage, Julie settles for divorce. In a night of a drunken haze, she has a one night stand. A week later, her husband begs to be taken back and Julie agrees. Nine months later, Annie Donavan is born. One look at Annie, with a silver streak through her hair, and Julie’s husband is out of her life for good. That streak is passed down from the father, and Julie’s husband has no such streak.

With everyone assuming adultery, and gossip on high alert, Julie leaves town with her five year old to start over. She moves to the very small town, and on her first day of teaching Kindergarten, her life takes another tumble straight to the gossip column. Lizzy Luckadeau also has a silver streak in her hair, in fact she could be Annie’s twin. Julie takes one look at Griffin, Lizzy’s dad, and knows he is they guy she had a one night stand with. When she confronts Griffin, he has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. Griffin assumes Julie is in town to lay claim to his property and immediately goes on the defensive. Julie knows they drank too much that night, but how could he not remember her? Griffin comes to learn Julie has a lot of spunk for the new girl in town and takes on the Luckadeau family head on. Despite Julie’s insistence on starting a new life, this sexy cowboy keeps drawing her back.

Getting Lucky is quite a different romance book that when I normally read. It is the first book I have read by Carolyn Brown and she has a very unique voice – the southern, Texas vibe really comes through. It is honestly not really my type of romance book, but that doesn’t mean it is written poorly. I just didn’t connect with the type of humor and the characters that well.

I found Julie to be a little bit conflicting– when you are reading her internal monologue she comes across as someone who is pensive and quiet and just wants to keep to herself with her daughter and not intrude on anyone’s life. Yet, when she talks, you don’t want to mess with this woman. She is very outspoken and does not take crap from anyone. It is almost like two different characters at some points. I am not sure if I truly bought into the more sassy Julie, although her confrontations with the others in the Luckadeau clan were amusing.

Griffin is a sexy, bull riding, ranch owning cowboy. The kind of guy that is sweaty and dirty all day (and looks good in all that dirt) and then cleans up real nice after his shower at night. He is a single father raising a daughter and that starts an immediate connection to Julie, something they both have in common. Griffin doesn’t know what to do with this new girl in town and his tension and sexual frustration comes off really well.

There are many family members that make appearances in this book and Annie and Lizzy take center stage quite often. I sometimes wish we got more of just Griffin and Julie. The romance scenes are more sweet than steamy. Griffin can ride a bull so well, I would have liked to see those skills used elsewhere, if you know what I am saying.

Overall, Getting Lucky is a cute story, but I don’t think I will be jumping to try the previous ones in this series.

Rating: 3/5

Recent Reviews:
Book Binge – 1.75/5
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Carolyn Brown’s website.