St Martin’s Press, $5.99, ISBN 0-312-97290-3
Paranormal Romance, 2000

I’d advise people wishing to read Wish Upon a Cowboy to check their tolerance for sugar first. The heroine in this book is so sugary I am sure her breath reeks of pure glucose. I may just suffer some serious psychological trauma at the end of the day.

The plot sure sounds good. The people of Creekford are spell casters. When the evil warlock Blake Wolcott threatens to destroy their magic while increasing his own, the people decide that he must be stopped (duh). If Blake marries Hannah Lowell, our heroine, he will be even more powerful.

To stop Blake from touching her ovaries and to save everybody, Hannah must travel to Wyoming to find the one warlock powerful enough to blast Blake to smithereens. Too bad Jonas Mackenzie has no idea he is a warlock, he doesn’t believe in magic, and is still grieving from the death of his wife ten years ago, so he just wants to be left alone. But never fear, Hannah is here!

Hannah Lowell. Eeek. In the first chapter, our heroine is almost in tears because she is such a bungler, she can’t even cast spells to fill up her larder! As a tear rolls down her eyes piteously, she tries to be cute and wonders, “Is it my rhyming?” Gag. She falls in love with Jonas five chapters upon seeing him, and spend the rest of the book acting spunky and bungling everything in the ranch in an attempt to be cute.

Cute?  Happy, forever optimistic Pollyannas who can’t do a thing without tripping and falling and acting giddy, all the while babbling “Aren’t we happy? Aren’t you cute?” and giggling giddily is not cute. She’s a bad word I shouldn’t say here. No wonder Jonas falls in love with her – he’d probably do anything to end the story.

Wish Upon a Cowboy will please fans with a higher tolerance for waifish Eliza Doolittle-meets-Mary Poppins heroines minus the charm and capability. Me, pass the vinegar over please.