Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to have the book completely and utterly spoiled.
Book Description: Longhorn-shifter Byrom Lenox sleeps most of his days away in order to work the night shift on the ranch he owns with his six brothers. But when he meets his mate, he's astonished at how much Scarlett Rose's presence tests his sexual self-control. However, after a tough couple of weeks, Byron feels unworthy of the young, innocent girl. Scarlett Rose grows more anxious by the day. With all the drama and danger being caused by her evil, bridezilla step-mother, her nerves have been a wreck. Byron has agreed to spend quality time with her, and it's just the opportunity she'd been waiting for to blow off some steam. He has her heart but how can she convince him to take her body?I love how that blurb calls Scarlett "innocent". There's nothing innocent about that girl. Also, why does that second sentence start with a "but"? It has nothing to do with the first sentence at all.
I'm so nervous going into this book, y'all. Byron and Denzel are the only two characters in this entire series that I can stand and I'm terrified Newmar is about to fuck that all up.
Previously At the
Ranch...............It was Devlin's turn to have solo time with Scarlett. They
head to Charlie's office to tell him about Alisa and Todd and Dasha
but Charlie chooses to believe his wife-to-be instead of his
daughter. Alisa decides that Scarlett has become more trouble than
she's worth and decides to sell her out to the Darque brothers who
want the Strawberry Girl in order to produce human offspring and get
their inheritance. Devlin and Scarlett head to Whipped Cream for
some dom/sub action and then continue the party at home with all the
brothers and some physically impossible sex. Afterwards, Scarlett
has a vision of security cameras in Charlie's office and realizes she
might be able to prove Todd and Alisa are having an affair. The boys
give her a collar which is her dream come true and the book ends.
Our Barnyard Beasties
Scarlett – our plucky
protagonist. She has no idea who she is or where she came from but
she knows her stepmother is trying to kill her. She just turned 21
and she has no issue with being mated to cows.
Leo (AKA Dr Moo) – a licensed
physician who is 20+ years older than our protagonist. Still no clue
what color his cow is and this bothers me for some reason.
Devlin (one of the twins) – a
dom with a bad attitude. He makes his living as a rodeo bull. He's
a black and white cow.
Denzel (the other twin) – the
sweetheart of the herd. He's the one who stays human at the rodeo to
show his brothers off. He's also a black and white cow.
Rhett, Sonny and Levi
– the triplets. Rhett is super horny, Sonny is the eternal
optimist and Levi is apparently the charmer of the herd but with a bit of a short temper. They compete as rodeo bulls. They are all red
cows.
Byron – the brooder. He works
in the husbandry department of the ranch (he makes baby cows for a
living). He's a tortured soul who hates being a shifter and hates
being mated. He's a loner and only joins the others for the
spreading of the butter. He's a blue cow which actually means he's
black.
Alisa – mail order bride from
Russia determined to be a black widow. She ordered Scarlett's death
more than once but can't seem to hire a competent hit man.
Dasha – Alisa's mother. She
gave Scarlett some poisoned lube back in book 2. She's in her 40's
which makes her roughly Dr Moo's age.
Charlie – Scarlett's clueless
father. He's elderly and not in the greatest of health.
Todd – Charlie's nurse and
Alisa's lover. He's the woodsman of our fairy tale. He tried to
kill Scarlett by pushing her off a cliff but only succeeded in
introducing her to the bull brothers.
The Darque Brothers - A bunch of panther shifters from Africa. They are after Scarlett because, as the only Strawberry Girl of this generation, she will produce human children rather than shifters. Their grandmas has told them they can't have their inheritance unless they produce human children.
On Today's Episode of the Bold and the
Bovine............
We're hosted by Byron to begin. He's
sitting in on some family meeting but he's exhausted and just wants
to go to bed. He's not even really listening to them and when one of
them asks him a question, he just nods. Devlin is surprised that
Byron has just voted to let Scarlett go with the others to Stan's.
Apparently Stan is some kind of electronic guru and they're going to
see if he can hack into Charlie's security cameras. Newmar
completely loses her fucking mind and describes Devlin as “the
'nice' half of his younger twin brothers”. What the fuck,
Newmar? Devlin is NOT the nice half. That's poor Denzel who isn't
even getting his own damn book.
Byron realizes what's actually being
discussed and reverses his position. He tells Scarlett she needs to
stay home with him while the others go. He's pretty excited about
the idea and starts to have some fantasies about how they'll pass the
time. He's the only brother who hasn't let his snake roam in
Scarlett's secret garden...if you know what I mean. He prefers to make his contribution from a
distance.
We jump into Scarlett's head as she
realizes that she's going to get to spend the day alone with Byron.
She hopes to have “actual intercourse” with him and, yes,
that's how Newmar words it. She goes to take a shower and the boys
have a meeting.
First, Newmar repeats WORD FOR WORD a
meeting they had several books ago where Leo makes that “fucks like
an angel” reference and tells them that they have to reveal their
secrets to Scarlett. Then he tells them that it's Byron's turn to
have her and the rest of them should run errands or find something to
do on the ranch so they'll have privacy. THEY WERE GOING TO STAN'S
NEWMAR!!! This was just TWO PAGES ago. How could you forget
already? The entire premise is that they go to Stan's and she stays
with Byron.
(((Note from future me: Not only is Stan's NEVER brought up again but this "day" that Byron is supposed to have with Scarlett lasts about four days and no one ever comments on that.)))
Suddenly it's night time again and I
guess Byron isn't going to work. I have no idea what's going on at
this point and neither does Newmar which is just sad. Byron is
sitting in front of the fire looking all tortured and brooding.
Scarlett joins him and tells him that she wants him
to.....ahem......engage in a bedroom rodeo with her and stick his
banana in her fruit salad.....if you know what I mean. He just looks
at her so she takes off her clothes and starts
to.......ahem.......paddle her pink canoe....if you know what I mean.
He's enjoying the show and takes his own paddle out to give it a
good polish but that just hurts her feelings.
She asks him why he hasn't had “full
intercourse” with her yet. NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS, NEWMAR!!! He tells her he still feels so guilty
over the poisoned lube incident that he can't get over it. His
fathers always told him that he was unworthy and letting Scarlett get
harmed on his watch just reinforces that. He can't be with her while
he feels unworthy. Byron tells us that he's never been one of the
bunch. From the time he was 13, he's been working on the ranch at
night and sometimes he goes days without any human interaction at
all. He's not sure how to navigate suddenly having a mate and it's
only been TWO FUCKING WEEKS so he hasn't figured it all out yet. I feel pretty bad for him.
Scarlett suggests pretending to be
someone else....someone worthy of plowing her fields if you know what
I mean. He thinks she means role playing and gets into the idea.
Scarlett suggests they be French bank robbers for some reason and Byron
gives it a go. He was never one to play as a child and this seems
like fun to him. Newmar starts to describe this role play - they're running around the room speaking in bad French accents and pretending the cops are after them - and then
just stops and has Byron tell us some of his sad life story instead.
It's mostly about when his mom left and we've heard it before. But
Newmar loses the plot at that point and suddenly it's the middle of
the night and Scarlett is asleep. Byron is trying not to sleep for
some reason and he sits on a bar stool in the kitchen thinking he
couldn't possibly doze off there. He does though.
None of this makes sense. What happened to the French bank robbers? Why isn't he going to work if he's not spending the time romping with Scarlett? Why is he sitting at the kitchen table trying not to go to sleep. That part would only make sense if his brothers were indeed gone to Stan's and he felt like he had to keep watch but his brothers NEVER WENT TO STAN'S and are definitely at the house so there's no reason for him to sit watch in the kitchen. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, NEWMAR???
Scarlett comes in and says his name and
he startles so bad that he kicks the wall with his bare feet and
tears half his big toenail off. Scarlett gets some first aid
supplies and doctors him up. She tries to seduce him again with the
most graphic and awkward sentence I've ever read in my life but he
still resists.
Now we're in Scarlett's head and she's
dreaming about her encounter with Byron back in book one. Newmar
writes it for us again WORD FOR WORD just like it happened five books
ago. She just padded out her page count with a bogus repeat chapter.
Cheater.
We hop into Jameson's head now.
He's one of those idiot Darque brothers. They're on the hunt for
Scarlett and it's just a bunch of words about them trying to fit in as Texans so they attract too much attention and get on the Longhorn radar. We also get some back story about why their grandma wants human babies. Apparently she's a shifter - the first I'd heard of in this series - and she'd fallen in love with a human who wasn't her mate. She had to leave him, though, because shifters can only be with their mates and she became bitter. She didn't love her mate and always longed for her first love. So now she wants to break the shifter curse in her family.
Back with Scarlett, it's the next day and
Byron is asleep. Because he worked the night before. ONLY HE DIDN'T, NEWMAR, BECAUSE YOU HAD HIM STAY HOME!!! I guess his turn is spilling over into a second day because everyone else is out on the ranch. Jane calls to talk to Scarlett. In case you don't remember, and I don't blame you if you don't, Jane is
the person who helped her get ready for her big submission exhibition
at Whipped Cream. Jane wants to stop by and see Scarlett but
mentions she can't stay long because she needs a shower. Scarlett
insists that she shower at the ranch which is....odd.
The only part of this visit that Newmar bothers to write about is the shower part. I wonder how Jane liked that window in the shower and the possibility that a bunch of perverted cows were staring at her boobs the entire time? While Jane is in the shower, Scarlett
grabs the special knee pads she made for Jane out of silver leather
and Swarovski crystals and then kneels on a thick layer of white rice
in the middle of her bedroom floor to present them to her.
Jane is thrilled with her present. She
and Scarlett flirt a little, including a bare breasted hug, and just
when I think things are going to get really interesting, the chapter
ends.
All of a sudden we're in a steak house
with Scarlett, Leo and Byron. They're shown into a private dining
space with a deep-seated booth and a lot of candles. The waiter
offers them a bottle of $800 wine and the guys say it's okay but
Scarlett refuses it and orders something cheap. They both think this
is the most amazing thing that a woman has ever done and they praise
her for it before beginning to make out. I don't know what happens
there because Newmar abruptly ends the chapter again and never bothers to fill us in.
Now we're back the the Darque boys.
They've arrived in Fort Worth and go straight to Whipped Cream where
they meet some old friends. They're trying to get information about
Jane now and I'm not sure how Jane even got on their radar. Newmar
doesn't bother to tell us. She just acts like we all know what she's
thinking in that pea-sized brain of hers. They manage to finagle an
introduction and Jameson is immediately hot for the pretty woman. He
thinks Jane might be their mate which complicates matters some but
nothing can deter his plan to get Scarlett and her “magical
uterus”.
Why do they want Jane? We never really find out. Maybe it was supposed to be revealed in one of those books that never got published. It makes no sense whatsoever in this book. Not like anything else does. This is, by far, the most disorganized one of the lot and I'm not surprised there weren't any more after this.
We're back with Scarlett. She's in
Byron's room at her vanity table getting ready for the day. Byron is
the only one who doesn't mind her “girly things” in his
room so she's set up her makeup there. He comes in and starts to
kiss her back as she's sitting in front of the mirror. He pulls her
to her feet and then he does some kind of acrobatics in order
to....ahem.....obey Michelle Obama.....if you know what I mean. If
you don't, read the last damn recap. He shifts his tongue during
this so I'll just let that sink into your imaginations for a second.
EWWWWWWWWWWWWW...........
Byron tells her that he can't do this unless she takes charge of him so she calls up her inner Devlin and gives it a go. It's pretty much just the 'B' part of the BDSM acronym, though.
She restrains him and then finally gets his.....ahem....maypole into
her cavern.....if you know what I mean. Afterwards, he hugs her
gently and offers to run a bath for her. It's really sweet and so
far I still like him. Which is a damned miracle.
There's 10% left in the book so we've
reached the menage portion of the book. They're just getting started so nothing too bizarre has taken place yet and then all of a sudden Byron has a vision. He tells Scarlett
that he sensed life in her. She's pregnant and he's sure it's twins.
And that's it, guys. As far as I know,
the other books in this series never got published. I think we can
infer that Scarlett is useless to the Darque brothers now because
they said in the last book that once she gets pregnant with a shifter's baby, she can't get
pregnant with any other shifter's baby. So there's no way she can
have Darque babies now. Maybe they'll settle for Jane and everyone
will live happily ever after.
After I finished this, I was having a discussion with my manager about Scarlett being pregnant at the end and I suddenly realized I have so many more questions. Up until this book, all the shifters in Newmar's universe have been men. Which makes sense because all the shifter siblings are forced to share a mate. This would be hard if they were a mixture of male/female unless some of them were gay. But in this book, Newmar introduced a female shifter in one of the bloodlines. So were all the siblings born to the Darque grandma girls? Or did she have brothers who were forced to share her male mate? Also, will Scarlett's future babies all have to share a mate too or, since they're human, are they going to be allowed to all find their own? Can you imagine them bringing home their SO to meet their mom and seven dads? That would be a weird day. I don't really understand this universe that Newmar tried to craft and I don't really think she did either which is just a shame.
So, this is the end. Oddly enough, I'm going to miss the absurdity of this series. And I'm sad sweet Denzel never got his own book.
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