Outback Surrender, Margaret Way

Out­back Sur­ren­der (2003) by Mar­garet Way, Har­le­quin Romance #3775. This guest review was sub­mit­ted by fel­low reader Sen­e­tra for TBR Chal­lenge. Please take a moment to read all the other reviews of our par­tic­i­pants here.

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I started and restarted this review sev­eral times, and couldn’t fig­ure out what I wanted to say about this book, so I’m just going to lay it out there. I got halfway through and real­ized that there were more char­ac­ters than plot, and a quar­ter of them were dead, but still show up. Here goes:

Shel­ley — Hero­ine — Mar­tyr to her fam­ily, trauma in her past, keep­ing the fam­ily finances together.

Brock — Hero — Dis­owned by grandpa, trau­mas in his past, ready to avenge his mother and find out where his dad went.

Amanda — Shelley’s sis­ter. Very pretty, parent’s favorite, doesn’t do any work around the family’s sta­tion. Acknowl­edged to be “loose” by sev­eral char­ac­ters, but they live 3 hours away from town. Who’s she get­ting it on with?

Sean — Shelley’s dead twin brother. After over­heat­ing while out­side, he mys­te­ri­ously drowned at the age of six, but Shel­ley still sees him and talks to him daily. Par­ents never moved on after his death, him being the only son and all that.

Patrick — Shelley’s dad. He’s been drink­ing since Sean’s death. Who ran things till Shel­ley grew up?

Shelley’s unnamed mom — she lives holed up in her room, mourn­ing Sean’s death.

Rex Kings­ley — Hero’s grand­dad — Evil rich dying man who wants his grand­son to come home so he can inherit things. Vis­ited by the ghost of his dead daughter.

Cather­ine — Hero’s mom — dead of can­cer (heart­break, really) after her father ban­ished her and her son. Her ghost vis­its Rex on his deathbed, and he talks to her.

Rory — Hero’s dad — MIA since the hero was six, never got along with father-in-law

Aaron — Phillip’s dad, Catherine’s brother, Rex’s son. Died when Philip was very young.

Phillip — Hero’s cousin — spine­less dude who stayed for the abuse in hopes of inher­it­ing, thinks hero­ine will marry him, even after she tells him that she will not marry him.

Frances — Hero’s aunt by mar­riage — par­ents worked 2 jobs each to put her through school; she got a degree in eco­nom­ics, mar­ried an inno­cent rich guy (every­one else saw her com­ing), got preg­nant, broke his heart, so he let him­self get gored by a bull and died. Seri­ously. And she’s hav­ing an affair with dying grandpa’s lawyer

Ger­ald — Dying grandpa’s shady lawyer — Destroys the will after grandpa dies, claim­ing that since no one had signed it, it was invalid anyway

Eula — Long-time house­keeper with a bad mem­ory — Wit­nessed the will the lawyer destroyed; she made a copy using the fax machine, then promptly lost it. Much fret­ting ensues, irri­tat­ing both me and Shelley.

Chris­tine — char­ac­ter from another story. Her pur­pose? Deus ex machina.

Har­riet — for­mer school­teacher who now owns a Thai restau­rant that would be suit­able for a show­ing of Shelley’s botan­i­cal artwork.

Mick Dono­van — runs the town’s only pub.

On to the plot. Brock comes home from Ire­land, runs into Shel­ley, real­izes how beau­ti­ful she is now. Says stuff to Shel­ley like “You want the truth? You’re sim­ply too sweet, too soft, too suc­cu­lent. And I’m too hun­gry. I couldn’t have it end­ing in tears.” Shel­ley goes back home to the sta­tion and thinks about what she has to do to pre­pare for guests, but doesn’t really DO any­thing. Nobody really DOES any­thing. Brock flies over in the heli­copter to visit, Phillip flies over in the heli­copter to visit, Brock and Phillilp fly over in the heli­copter to visit. You see where I’m going with this, right?

Amanda gets chased by an angry kan­ga­roo. At some point, Brock and (vir­gin!) Shel­ley do it out­side, in a cave or on the grass or some­thing. Chris­tine runs into Shel­ley in town. In another book, Shel­ley appar­ently gave them the clue they needed to deci­pher a map and find a for­tune in gold, and they are giv­ing Shel­ley money to thank her. Since Shel­ley can now afford to leave her fam­ily and pur­sue her dream of being a botan­i­cal artist, she refuses. Brocka and Shel­ley do it by a creek where she remem­bers that Sean was sick from the heat and Amanda left them alone, then Sean fell in the water. Frances plots with the lawyer and Rex dies. The old will leav­ing Phillip in con­trol is pro­duced. Brock is angry and going to sue the lawyer for mis­con­duct. Patrick tells Shel­ley she is going to marry Phillip and have secu­rity. They are going to put Rex in the mau­soleum with Aaron, but it’s locked and they have to break it open. Then they find Rory’s skele­ton with a bul­let hole in the skull. Phillp and Brock bond over the evil that was Rex and decide that they will tear down the mau­soleum. Eula frets about her bad mem­ory. The will isn’t in the Chi­nese vase, it’s in the Chi­nese chest! Brock wins every­thing! Ger­ald is forced to retire! Phillip becomes man­ager of a smaller sta­tion. Brock and Shel­ley get mar­ried. Patrick walks her down the aisle. One of Shelley’s brides­maids (unseen before now) is the hero­ine of the next book, and Shel­ley even muses that Nicole has her own dra­matic story to tell and trau­mas to deal with.

I went around and around with the grade for this book. There wasn’t a spe­cific point I could point to and say “That’s where it went wrong.” The whole book is where it went wrong. F.

This book is part of the Koomera Cross­ing series. For inter­ested read­ers, you can read a sam­ple chap­ter of the story here.