Baby, Drive South – Stephanie Bond

Posted June 18, 2011 by Shannon in Reviews / 0 Comments

The hardheaded Armstrong brothers are determined to rebuild their tornado-ravaged hometown in the Georgia mountains. They’ve got the means, they’ve got the manpower…what they need are women! So they place an ad in a northern newspaper and wait for the ladies to answer their call….

Porter, the youngest Armstrong, is all for importing women. Still, he’s so blown away by the sheer numbers, he falls off the water tower. Luckily there’s a doctor among the newcomers—sweet and sexy Dr. Nikki Salinger.

And Porter has every intention of checking out her bedside manner….

This is the first installment in the Southern Roads trilogy. It was OK.

The Armstrong brothers are trying to rebuild their hometown of Sweetness, Georgia, which had been leveled ten years earlier by an F-5 tornado. They’ve brought in a huge contingent of men who will help them with this undertaken. Problem is, there aren’t any woman to help balance out the testosterone.

Porter comes up with the idea to run an ad in a newspaper to bring some single woman to Sweetness. The ad would explain what they were attempting to do with the town and encourage those woman to pack up their belongings and come be part of something wonderful. Neither of his older brothers think the idea will work, but they give it a shot anyway.

After waiting several days, they had just about given up hope that they ad worked, until Porter spotted the caravan coming towards town. And it’s huge. In his excitement, he falls from the water tower (which he had been using as his look out post) and breaks his leg.

It’s that broken leg that leads to him meeting Dr. Nikki Salinger.

She’s coming to town looking for a fresh start. Or maybe is was running away from the bad memories of her fiancee cheating on her with a stipper. She’s a very half glass empty type of person, so I’m thinking it’s the running away part. Anyway…she sets his leg, get inadvertently kissed by a very drugged up Porter and then rejected when she hears Porter make a stupid comment about his kiss being the highlight of Nikki’s day.

So she’s a plain Jane and her self confidence is in the toilet, but can you really take the actions of a drugged up patient to heart? Or even after he comes to from having his leg set? I’m sure there has to be some lingering effects for the drugs.

I couldn’t connect with either of these characters. Porter was too wishy washy with his I most definitely don’t like Jane, to always trying to find her. Jane was just as bad with her wishy washiness, but then add in her “I’m so ugly and can’t compete with these other woman” and it drove me insane.

Plus, here’s this town building this clinic (which is something Jane has wanted to do) and she’s willing to throw everything away because she still hurt by Porter’s comments and jealous of the other women’s looks and clothes. Again…drove me nuts!

The end of this one tied together a little to neatly and fast for me. We get to that pivotal point where you need the angst and passion (but you need it to last a little bit longer than a few pages) and BAM…you’re at the end. Everything is wrapped up and everyone is happy. I needed groveling on Porter’s part. I needed him to prove that he loved her, with something a little bit more adult than spray painting the water tower.

3 Cocktails

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Shannon

Owner at Cocktails and Books

I am a lover of alpha males with dirty mouths, strong heroines putting alpha males in their place, and the Chicago Blackhawks. I'm a proud hockey mom who can often be found at the hockey rink cheering on my favorite forward, with my kindle close by.