Slow Dance with a Cowboy

by Linda Style

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373710623
• ISBN13: 9780373710621
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Harlequin Books
• Length: 295 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

A Powerful Novel with Real Life Situations

Slow Dance with a Cowboy is an intense, gritty story that isn't afraid to deal with real life situations. Linda Style's able handling of mental illness and prejudice adds depth to this wonderful story. Peopled with protagonists you care about, as well as some of the best secondary characters you're likely to see, Linda's book carries the reader on an emotional journey with a truly satisfying outcome. I predict Ms. Style is headed for a stellar career.

Powerful treatment of mental illness -- Very highly recommen

Schoolteacher Nicole Weston profoundly understands what it means to be ostracized by everyone around her. Her mother's mental illness resulted in tremendous instability during her childhood. Consequently, Nicole is a lioness when it comes to protecting those in her care for a program for teens at risk, providing the last chance they have for graduating from high school. When her classroom is vandalized, her troubled students are the first to be suspected of the crime. She just as fiercely rises to the cause of the underdogs in her elementary classes. Then one of Nicole's students most in need turns out to be the son of her old flame.Ex-cowboy Cameron Colter has given up a lot of dreams over the years, leaving behind his family's ranch to establish his own construction company. Anger at his brothers has separated him from his family, but now he has new family to care for when his son sudden comes to live with him. Cam intends to form a strong working relationship with Michael's teacher in hopes of calming behavioral issues. Then the substitute for the remained of the year turns out to be the woman he wanted to marry ten years ago. He never understood why Nicole ended their relationship, and it does not take long in her company for him to long to rekindle old flames. Author Linda Style boldly incorporates the theme of mental illness in SLOW DANCE WITH A COWBOY. My own mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia twenty years ago, and I cannot help but be impressed with Style's enactment of the nightmare such a diagnosis brings. Nicole faces issues regarding long term care of her mentally ill parent, including the financial ramifications as well as the questioning of her own mental health and that of her future children. Only a child when her mother was hospitalized, Nicole learned to accept the necessary changes to her own life that schizophrenia brings about regarding one's hopes and dreams. As any person would, Nicole once longed to hide her mother's illness, desperately wanting to be normal instead of being ostracized because of her mother. Cam's response to Nicole's mother is marvelous, and he demonstrates tremendous forethought as he thinks through the ramifications of a relationship with Nicole, who is at risk for schizophrenia as well. Indeed, themes of honesty with self and others make this a story that touches the heart as well as providing food for reflection. Very highly recommended.