LYON'S GATE by Catherine Coulter

This is a departure from my usual reading matter.  I had picked it up at a book sale long ago thinking that it might be a nice change for me.  Despite its being a romance, I did enjoy the characters and story enough to finish reading the book, but I won't be seeking out the rest of this Sherbrooke series.

The plot involves Jason Sherbrooke, unbelievably handsome Englishman with an identical twin.  He has been away in Baltimore, MD, for five years because of a crisis that happened in an earlier volume in the series.  When he returns to his family's estate, he sees a stud farm for sale nearby and he wants to buy it and settle down.  He is knowledgeable about horses, has the money to buy the place, and so there seem to be no obstacles in his way until . . .

Enter Hallie Carrick, a young, impetuous horse lover, who is determined to buy the place for herself.  Hallie is likable and will keep you laughing but her naivete is really too much of a stretch even for a romance novel.  This is a girl who has grown up on a horse farm and has no problem holding a nervous mare for mating, but doesn't have the slightest clue about sex between humans.  Speaking of which, the sex scenes are quite explicit.  Not shocking to me but maybe to others.  Just sayin'.

Anyway, Hallie is wealthy too and always gets her way so the battle to buy the property is on.  It ends up with the two of them each owning half the farm and sharing a house, along with a chaperone and servants who are funny characters in their own right.  The book will have you chuckling all the way through, perhaps even enough to endure the predictable story.

Source:  book sale
Only recommended for diehard Coulter fans