Fin­ished Never Love a Law­man by Jo Good­man. This is a his­tor­i­cal west­ern romance set in a small Col­orado min­ing town.

This book focuses on Rachel Bai­ley, a new­comer to Rei­dsville, Colo., who inher­its some­thing worth a lot of money — con­trol of the rail­way that leads to the iso­lated town. To keep con­trol of the rail­way and keep the town alive, Rachel enters into an arranged mar­riage with Sher­iff Wyatt Cooper. Soon, the two are real­iz­ing that maybe there’s more to their mar­riage than either one intended. But there’s a vil­lain out there who wants Rachel and the rail­way — and he’ll stop at noth­ing to have both of them …

I’m a sucker for west­erns, and this is a really good one. Rachel and Wyatt are both smart, inter­est­ing char­ac­ters with their own trou­bled pasts, and their rela­tion­ship devel­ops at a slow, nat­ural pace. I also enjoyed the var­i­ous towns­peo­ple and the secret that they’re all hid­ing. I’d love to read another book set in the town just so I could visit with all the char­ac­ters again.

My only quib­ble was the vil­lain, who I thought was a lit­tle two-dimensional and over the top. The vil­lain really, really, really wants Rachel, and he’s deter­mined to have her no mat­ter what. I get a lit­tle tired of see­ing this sort of obses­sion as the villain’s main moti­va­tion in his­tor­i­cal (or other) romances. This is a really good book, but for me, if the vil­lain had been devel­oped a lit­tle more, it would have been a really great book.

But if you like west­erns, you should def­i­nitely check this one out. Thumbs up.

Up next: Kiss of a Demon King by Kres­ley Cole.

Books in my TBR pile: About 15.