Only Yours (Fool's Gold, #5)

by Susan Mallery

Man's best...matchmaker?

Montana Hendrix has found her calling--working with therapy dogs. With a career she loves in a hometown she adores, she's finally ready to look for her own happily ever after. Could one of her dogs help her find Mr. Right...or maybe Dr. Right?

Surgeon Simon Bradley prefers the sterility of the hospital to the messiness of real life, especially when real life includes an accident-prone mutt and a woman whose kisses make him want what he knows he can't have. Scarred since childhood, he avoids emotional entanglement by moving from place to place to heal children who need his skillful touch. Can his growing feelings for Montana lead him to find a home in Fool's Gold, or will he walk away, taking her broken heart with him?

• ISBN10: 0373775946
• ISBN13: 9780373775941
• Publish Date: 30 August 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Mills & Boon
• Edition: Original ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

I've been holding this review for a few days, hoping to get over my anger at the ending. Of course, it's not going away (even though I want it to) so I've decided to go ahead with my review. Maybe this will be cathartic for me...who knows!

Our story begins with Montana walking an over rambunctious Fluffy, only to have her break loose of her leash and proceed to run rampent through the Fool's Gold hospital. When Montana finally catches up with Fluffy, on the burn unit, it's to run into visiting plastic surgeon, Simon Bradley.

Simon, of the "stick up his ass" line of doctors, immediately takes exception to a bundle of fur running through the sterile environment of the burn unit. He, in no uncertain terms, lets Montana know what he thinks of her and her dog before tossing them both out on their asses.

How's that for a beginning???

From there we have the normal "goings on" in Fool's Gold. The town board is determined to win Dr. Bradley over, so Mayor Marsha decides to enlist Montana to "convince" Dr. Bradley. She's to use whatever tools are necessary **wink, wink**.

So it's with determination that Montana tries to win over Simon Bradley, despite the fact that she doesn't think she's the right person to be doing this. As a matter of fact, Montana doesn't think she's good enough for anything. But she's determined Simon is good for Fool's Gold and she'll get him to stay.

Simon, of course, fights this tooth and nail. He's a loner and prefers it. Having been scarred by an abusive mother (there's a nomination for Mother of the Year!!) and be extremely bright as a child, he's always held himself off from others, since people didn't really know what to do with him. While he holds himself back from most people, he does give all of himself to his patients since he knows he only needs to deal with them short term.

I generally adore Susan Mallery books, but this one just didn't work for me. While I know Simon is a serious person, Montana is supposed to be "the funny triplet". Yet, we didn't seem to have much comedic moments in this one as we did in the others.

I MISS THE OTHER FOOL'S GOLD CHARACTERS!!! I absolutely loved Finn. Loved him. So I was at a loss as to why, even when Finn was in a scene, he wasn't there. The man couldn't keep his mouth shut to save himself in his story, but now he's suddenly silent??? Ethan was there, kinda, but again...he was silent. I'd have to think he'd have a little more interaction with his family, especially with Kent and Reese's accident.

I feel this overwhelming need to still connect with the previous characters and sometimes, even when they're there in the storyline or scene, if seems like they're not there. Part of the charm of Fool's Gold is the fact that the people within the town are so close, so it feels like there should be more interaction.

Overall, it's a good story and I'm sure others will love it. But as a follower of the series from the beginning (and someone who loves Susan Mallery's books) this one just fell short to me.

3.5 Cocktails

[Leah]

Susan Mallery isn’t particularly well known in the UK – in fact I’m not entirely sure she’s had any books released this side of the pond. However she’s written somewhere around 50 novels, and seems to be someone the American readers love so when I spotted one of her novels, Only Yours, on NetGalley I decided it sounded like a wonderful novel. I love books with dogs in, so that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I wasn’t planning on reading it any time soon until Danielle mentioned I could review it during August so I decided it had to shoot up my TBR pile on my Kindle and I’m actually really glad I did.

Although Only Yours has a very modern-looking cover, I’d probably say Susan Mallery is more a contemporary romance author than a Chick Lit author. It’s a fine line between the two, and for the most part they’re very similar, but I figured I’d get that out there. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the novel, but the first chapter managed to make me laugh so I figured I’d made a good spot picking up the novel. The opening of the novel introduces us to Montana as she’s training up a dog named Fluffy to become a therapy dog when Fluffy runs away and ends up in a hospital. Trust me, although my description probably doesn’t sound funny, it was a funny scenario and it was a lovely way to start the book. I was immediately drawn in. To Montana, to her work with the therapy dogs, to Dr Simon and his love for his job, and to all the people in Fool’s Gold.

Only Yours isn’t the first novel set in the beautiful-sounding Fool’s Gold, in fact it’s book five. The books seem to revolve around one person living in Fool’s Gold and the three “Only” books (Only Mine, Only Yours, Only His) for example are all about the Hendrix triplets: Dakota, Montana and Nevada. But the books are about all the other characters in Fool’s Gold, too. Even the previous Fool’s Gold characters – Pia, Charity, Liz – re-appear although their plots are explained so we get fully up to date. The one thing that stood out for me was how wonderful and how community-like Fool’s Gold was. I love novels that are set around a small community and Fool’s Gold is the kind of community you want to be a part of. Montana finds herself being the center of attention as the Mayor, Marsha, tells Montana to try and get Dr. Simon to stay in Fool’s Gold, despite the fact he doesn’t like to stay in any place too long.

I really loved the characters in Only Yours. I loved Montana. When we meet her she’s only just managed to find a job she loves, and I loved how dedicated she was to her therapy dogs. I totally fell for all the sweet dogs we meet. I also totally fell for Dr Simon Bradley. The chemistry between himself and Montana was something else. It’s so rare for the two characters in a novel to be kissing each other so early on in a novel, but it seemed perfect when they kissed each other for the first time. I totally fell for them both and enjoyed their interaction with each other. I also loved Montana’s sisters and mother and brothers. All their friends. I found the entire community to be enchanting and once I was in Fool’s Gold, I never wanted to leave. A particular character who struck a chord with me was Kalinda. She’s a little girl who Dr Bradley is tending to after she was burned in an accident and I was really hoping she would pull through and I loved how brave she was.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Only Yours. It wasn’t what I usually read and it very much reminded me of the Susan Wiggs novel I read a few months ago. Both are such good contemporary romance authors and I really liked reading about Montana. I loved becoming a part of Fool’s Gold, if only for a few days and I’ll definitely be looking into reading the rest of the Fool’s Gold series. I can’t wait to read Pia’s story, along with Nevada and Dakota’s stories. It was such a well-written story, too, and I couldn’t wait to get back to it each night. It had all the ingredients I love in a novel. Great characters, a lovely plot, some beautiful dogs (I loved the dogs!), a brilliant setting… It all added up to a read I loved. I’m so glad I finally decided to read my first Susan Mallery novel, I can see why she’s so well-loved and I can’t wait to go back to Fool’s Gold as soon as I can!