Country at Heart. Mandy Magro

Country at Heart
Mandy Magro
Publisher: Harlequin Mira
Date: 1st September 2014
Format: e-ARC
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Army, protecting the country he loves, and his dearly beloved explosive detection dog Indy are Dean’s life – he can’t imagine doing anything else. But life has other plans for Dean when he and Indy are wounded in action in Afghanistan and sent home to his family’s seaside horse property, Whispering Meadows, to heal.

Free-spirited Summer has agreed to spend one last holiday with her parents at their luxurious vacation home, despite her father’s resistance to her plans for her career. But events take an unexpected turn when Summer and Dean meet and discover that love at first sight truly exists.

But can they overcome the very real challenges of coming from different sides of the tracks? And when Summer has to face the unpleasant truth about an old friend, as well as come to terms with the after-effects of a bewildering assault, she has to make a heartbreaking decision about their relationship. Can Dean’s love ultimately sway her?

Country at Heart is set in rural Australia as well as partly in war torn Afghanistan.  

Dean, soldier and farmer I rather liked.  He is an experienced soldier, caring of his family and has an affinity with the animals that he works or has worked with in the past.  The animals helped make this story heart warming.  Dean is deeply affected by his close mate being killed in the line of duty.  He has values and he lives by them.  The scenes in Afghanistan and with Dean and his family I enjoyed very much.

Summer - I found it somewhat difficult to like her.  She believes in yoga and good health and a little of what I would call woo - woo.  She has a bad encounter with a guy called Marcus and chooses to keep it under wraps - this comes back to bite her later on.  When things go pear shaped she bails out. Okay it all works out, it is a HEA, but if she loves Dean, why doesn't she face up and talk it out first?

When Dean returns for a three week furlough he meets Summer and there is insta-love happening. Ashley over at Nose Graze had an interesting discussion on this aspect of some books, asking why it still exists  and I couldn't agree more with her point of view.  I found this falling in love straight away a little hard to swallow.