Hearts of Thunder, GERD of pain

Oh Johanna Lindsey, how I love your Malory series! Unfortunately this book was as painful as your Malory novels are joyous.

Let's start with the cover- which the author no doubt had not much to do with as its a marketing thing...
The male model is definately suffering from some kind of weird zombie-tan and the woman is just... well.. lets just say her curtains and carpet cant match! Of course the back of the cover has the horse going nuts, its par for the course.

As for the premise, a fiesty (fiesty means a woman who screams and is TSTL) Samantha is the inheritor of land that once belonged to the swarthy (swarthy meaning asshole) man named Hank (oh how sexay eh? sounds like a guy who repairs my car). Oh how Hank is an ass. Even from his beginning on the stagecoach- ass hattery approacheth!
Samanth (Sammy) is no better. In fact, I think these two deserve each other. Samantha is the feminine lone ranger, she can shoot, ride and hunt with the best of the men. Until of course, the plot requires her to be insipid and screechy.

Now I love, and I do mean lurrrrve, a good bodice ripper. The problem with this book is the dialogue. Its painful. Hank (oh yeah its so damn sexy) speaks in such a stilted tone that I kept hearing Speedy Gonzalez talking for him. for example:
"I am saying only that I am a stranger and you should not be so trusting of strangers. But let me assure you now that you can trust me"
OK, now re-read that with the speedy voice... yeah its hilarious.

Honestly, reading this I knew it was an early work so I was prepared for the rape scenes and the "oh noes! OH yessss!" bits. What really killed it for me was the dialogue.

The best part of the book? I could NOT stop reading it! It was as if a magical mystery tourhand was pushing me to keep reading. They end up with their HEA but dayum, how weird a road it took to get there.

Would I recommend this book? If you're familiar with historicals (80's historicals at that) then yes. Then I can have someone to laugh with me at the bad wooden speeches, but enjoy the passion these two characters shared.

Two twinkies outta five.