Review: Topaz and Lace

'' ''So now you're doing what you do best.''

''Excuse me?''

Running away.'' He smiled. It chilled. ''Because that is what you're doing, isn't it?'' ''

★★★☆☆

From Goodreads:
A temporary condition, she’d intended to be there only long enough to leave again. But then she met him.
Pursuing her dream of becoming a veterinarian, when Cassie Hastings took an externship in the tiny town of Pantula, Texas, she never planned on staying. For a girl staunchly opposed to change, moving some odd thousand miles away from home to a population boasting more heads of cattle than people and an apartment housed on top of an animal clinic, it promised to be a steep learning curve.
She would have handled it all better, (she would have!) if it hadn’t been for Brannt McDowell, one of the town’s most prosperous cattle ranchers—and her most stubborn client. He was moody, arrogant, infuriatingly witty…and altogether devastating. Pitted against the knowledge that her rotation lasted only eight, short weeks, and an ever-increasing attraction to one another, tempers soon flared and sparks ignited between the sparring partners.
Cassie had gone to Pantula to learn about large animal medicine; she’d gone there to glean independence in the wide open air; she’d gone there on a dare. Falling in love hadn’t been part of the plan. She did it anyway.
Now she’d have to choose between the place she’d always thought she’d be headed, and the home she suddenly didn’t want to leave.

She wants to challenge herself and show the world that she isn't afraid to leave home. And now it just might turn against her.
Cassie doesn't leave home. She has always lived with her parents, not even leaving for college, but choosing a local institution. She has her eyes set on a local vet clinic, but before that she needs to do one externship, and what a better place to get the authentic large animal handling and medicine tutoring than from Texas. She sets off to a humid town for two months, with the intention of coming back home as soon as possible.


Cassie has always wanted to feel safe and secured. She loves learning but isn't good at changing environments. She goes through a major development in the book from her content, safe self, to someone who listens to her heart and does things for her and herself only.

The plot is something I really enjoyed. There is the brooding male who, at first, wants nothing to do with Cassie, but warms up to her a bit later. Although some twists I could anticipate and some outcomes could plainly be seen from the beginning, the entire story was well put together, with no loose ends hanging in the end.

The author gets you rooting for the main couple. You might get frustrated when nothing seems to happen between them, but I promise, this is one of those guaranteed HEA books.

As a romance book, this really was a good read. What I didn't get was that where the 'Topaz' in the title came from. The lace I maybe can guess. And no, the story isn't as pure as the white cover lets on...