cover image A Cowboy for Christmas

A Cowboy for Christmas

Lacy Williams. Harlequin/Love Inspired Historical, $5.99 mass market (288p) ISBN 978-0-373-28292-0

In Williams's tepid and tedious fourth Wyoming Legacy romance (after The Wrangler's Inconvenient Wife), Daisy Richards has slowly learned how to compensate for the loss of her arm following an injury. Ricky White is a new ranch hand on her father's property, and responsible for the accident that harmed Daisy. What follows is purported to be a historical romance with a Christian theme, but while characters occasionally pay lip service to the Christian ideals supposedly guiding their actions, these ideals rarely influence their behavior. Daisy is neither modest nor decorous, even in church. Ricky professes that he is a changed man due to salvation, yet he perpetrates a campaign of dishonesty against Daisy. Williams relies on calamity rather than plot. The ending is baffling, with the facts of the conflict suddenly changed at the last moment, rather than resolved. And despite the title, there are no cows and no cowboys to be seen. (Dec.)