Phantom Waltz (Coulter Family)

I am replacing all of my Catherine Anderson softcovers with hardcovers. This was the first of her books I ever read and it hooked me. I am now getting all of her books I can. This story is of a strong handicapped girl, and a determined rancher. I would recommend it to anyone who loves a good love-story in a western atmosphere.

I LOVED this book. I'm a quadrapeligic. This book's hero is Ryan, Rafe's (Baby Love) little brother. He meets Bethany, a parapelgic, at her father's store, yet he doesn't relize she's handicapped until after he's asked her out. He keeps the date out of pity but finds out she's his perfect girl. The only problem, sex. It's really cute he's the one chasing her. All around I loved it.

I found this story to be one of the best I have read in along time. Although it helped Ryan was wealthy( this is fiction after all), what he really gave her was unconditional love and acceptance. I found the couple to be endearing, and the story deliciously romantic. What Ryan gave Bethany was far more than money could buy. The added characters of Sly, T-Bone and Tripper were a delight. As was the scene in the bar. Ms Anderson's writing is fresh and not cluttered with information the reader doesn't need. For me this one is destined to be the book of 2001 because it takes romance fiction to a new higher level.

Catherine Anderson, well-known for her unconventional heroines, has created her most unusual yet with Bethany Coulter—a paraplegic and the love interest of Ryan Kendrick, brother of Rafe Kendrick from BABY LOVE.This book is totally character driven, is much spicier sexually than books I usually read, has virtually no plot other than the relationship between the hero and heroine--- and yet, I couldn’t put the book down once I started.Ryan, who had had his share of love interests throughout the years is in his early 30s and ready to settle down. Seeing his brother’s happiness after marrying Maggie, Ryan would like some of that same happiness for himself. When he sees lovely Bethany Coulter sitting at a computer at the farm parts store owned by her father, he is immediately lovestruck. He already decides he wants to ask her out – when she notices that the chair she is sitting in is a wheelchair. Bethany had been paralyzed from the waist down in a barrel racing accident eight years previously.Bethany at first tells Ryan a gentle no, but Ryan refuses to take this no for an answer and finally wears down her resolve. They go on a first date to a tractor pull but first, finding out her interest in horses, takes her out to his ranch to see his newborn colt. ... One of the most unusual secondary characters in the story is a friendly bull named T-bone, who had been sickly as a young calf, and Ryan had taken such a liking to him that he refused to have him castrated. When he makes friends with Cleo, Bethany’s cat, the picture of this cat, sleeping on the back of this enormous bull, makes for an unusual scene to say the least. Readers of BABY LOVE will enjoy being re-acquainted with the main characters from that book including Rafe, Maggie, her sister Heidi, her mother Helen, their son Jaime, and new baby daughter Amelia. Anderson has written yet another page turner. Her unusual heroines (a deaf heroine, abused heroine, a heroine accused of murder) and storylines have become her hallmark – she risks a lot here in creating such an usual heroine. But she does it with finesse and style, never making Bethany a character to be pitied but instead a strong woman with a life of her own, becoming more than she ever dreamt she could be. All combine for a book readers should be putting at the top of their reading list for the summer of 2001.

Sure, this book has everything we all love about romances, but it's got a lot more. Instead of a "perfect" female figure, Bethany is in a wheelchair. Her heart has been badly broken by men who always take one look, see the chair and run straight for the door. And then one day, in walks Ryan. Ryan is different from other men Bethany has known and for the first time, Bethany starts to open herself up to all the what ifs. This is one of the more touching books I have read and I highly recommend it to anyone.