REVIEW: Outback Hearts (book) by Susan Stoker

Outback Hearts is a contemporary romance. I checked my copy out from the library.

Review:

Sam becomes a reality TV show contestant, not realizing that it's going to be Bachelor-style. The contestants are all flown to the Australian Outback, where they're told that they'll be competing for the affections of Al, a rancher from Texas. To prove they have what it takes to be his wife, they do things like catch pigs, muck out stables, and more.

Although Sam thinks Al is attractive, she isn't in the mood for the kind of catty tactics most of the other contestants resort to. She figures it was probably an accident that she was chosen for the show and she'll get kicked off relatively early, so she's determined to do things her own way, even if the show's producer seems determined to do whatever he has to in order to get a drama-filled show.

Meanwhile, Al, who actually goes by Alex (the producer tweaks everybody's name to fit his vision for the show), is, unbeknownst to the contestants, given access to video of what the contestants are doing when he isn't around. He likes "Sammi" but quickly learns that this show isn't geared towards him choosing the person he really wants, but rather the person who'd make for the best TV.

I cataloged a bunch of this author's books once and figured I should eventually try one. The "Beyond Reality" books sounded the most interesting, although I'm not actually a reality TV fan. I maybe shouldn't have started with this one - I didn't remember this until later, but this was the one book out of the bunch I cataloged that had a typo (missing word) on the back cover. Unfortunately, the editing had issues between the covers as well. The most painful example was when the spelling of a character's name changed within a single paragraph.

This was definitely a "not like other girls" romance, with Sam as the only on-page contestant who wasn't horrible and catty. Supposedly there were a few other relatively decent people among the contestants, but none of them got any on-page appearances.

Overall, this just wasn't a good setup for an effective romance. Sam and Alex go on a grand total of one date, and talk maybe three or four times on-page.