The Real Thing by Tina Ann Forkner
April 7, 2016
Tule Publishing Group
Reviewed by Helyce
From Goodreads: Sometimes you have to don a pair of cowgirl boots…
Manda Marshall is ready to leave heartache behind when she marries Keith Black, a champion saddle bronc cowboy and man of her dreams. But going from the serenity of small town Tennessee to the exhilaration of the rodeo, nothing can prepare her for being a cowboy’s wife. Becoming the new stepmom to Keith’s little boy and teenaged daughter has Manda relying on her deep sense of longing for a family and budding love for her stepchildren to strengthen their bond.
Manda’s desire of being a rodeo cowboy’s wife begins to take second place as she works to reinvent a life for herself and new family, but when mysterious phone calls from Keith’s missing ex-wife dredge up the past, Manda finds her marriage and family in an unusual and heart wrenching dilemma. The life she had worked so hard to build is suddenly redefined and her commitment to her husband and family is tested.
What Manda discovers has the power to heal or break her family in this emotional tale of cowboys, rodeo queens, and what it really means to ride beside a cowboy and his family, no matter the risk.
Ms. Forkner is a new to me author and I was intrigued by the blurb for this book. I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut and the promise of ex-wife angst in a new marriage, along with stepchildren to boot, lured me right in. But this, sadly, was sooo not the story I expected.
Keith Black is a sexy cowboy who has made a name for himself in the rodeo circuit. He has two children, Peyton and Stevie. He’s had to pick up the pieces and hold his little family together after his wife up and leaves out of the blue one day, serving him with divorce papers soon afterward. Her leaving made no sense. Keith and Violet had the usual marital problems but they were deeply in love. The way she left surprised not only Keith, but also their friends and family and caused people to form their own conclusions. He has neither seen nor heard of her since the divorce papers were signed and has found the strength to move on.
Manda, too, has been married before and is now divorced. Manda doesn’t consider herself a cowgirl, but she’s head over heels for her cowboy. She’s struggling with finding her place in Keith’s life and his home. There are remnants and memories of Keith’s ex-wife Violet everywhere. Slowly, she’s tried to erase her fingerprint from the home, but it’s been difficult. She needs to tread lightly because Peyton, Keith’s daughter, is old enough to see what is going on and while she and Manda get along okay, it’s very upsetting to Peyton to see her mother’s touch in the home disappear completely.
The one thing that they absolutely cannot get rid of is a purple cell phone that Peyton has, a phone she is never without because she believes with all her heart that her mother will one day call her. And she does call one day, out of the blue, much like her disappearance. Of course the call comes from a blocked number, but Violet tells Peyton that she’s coming to see her. This puts everyone except Peyton in panic mode.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. Firstly, it in no way felt like a romance to me in spite of the fact that there was some focus on a married couple. We start off with the wedding, but the honeymoon happens completely off page and then Keith is off to a rodeo leaving Manda with the kids. Manda and her twin sister Marta run a store called The Southern Pair; an antique/gift store that also does manicures and pedicures. As I read on getting to know Manda, her sister, their dad and the kids I kept asking myself, where the hell is Manda’s new husband, Keith?
I couldn’t really warm up to Manda at first. It seemed that after a failed marriage, she’d met a great guy who she loved and who loved her. She loved her stepchildren as well and even with the teen angst that her pre-teen step daughter was bringing every chance she got, you got the feeling that it was going to be okay. She grumbles to her sister about her husband and wishes he would retire from the rodeo, but since there is little interaction between Manda and Keith, I found her to be just a complainer. Then, in a predictable turn of events, Marta suggests to Manda that she drive out and surprise her husband, offering to care for her niece and nephew.
What follows is the “meat” of the story in that certain things come to light and answer all the questions of what exactly happened to Violet. And it’s not at all what I expected even though I had a feeling at what was to come when Manda meets a woman at the rodeo when she goes to surprise Keith. I really cannot explain further without letting the cat out of the bag.
For me, this story dealt more with how a family deals with an unexpected event and how they sacrifice and compromise and come together to work through whatever issues present themselves. In this, the author succeeds in showing us that love truly can conquer all and though I didn’t care for Manda initially, I saw her in a different light as her generosity in simply accepting the hand she was dealt and accepting what couldn’t be changed because it was the right thing to do for her husband and their children.
But there were things that just didn’t sit right with me. And again, I really can’t go into it without spoiling. For a romance, this story lacked intimacy in every way and I’m not just saying that because there is absolutely no sex. I didn’t feel the connection between Manda and Keith even though they said and did all the right things at the right time. They were just too apart from each other in the beginning which made their supposed closeness hard to accept once they had to rely on each other later in the book.
Grade: C-
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