This Crazy Love (Crazy Mountain Series #1)

S.H.
Pratt
Genre: 
Contemporary

The setting: a ranch in Montana. The conflict: demons. No, not demons that populate paranormal novels, but demons that one can battle every day of their lives. The cause: guilt. Austin and Fiona are running away from demons that refuse to let go of them. Austin decides that a change of scenery should help and hies off to Montana. Fiona’s sister, Brianna is badly injured in an accident and needs Fiona to return to the Lazy D Dude Ranch, the very place where her demons were born.

There is a lot to learn from this love story. Post-traumatic stress disorder comes in different forms and its effect on people is multivariate. It is a blame game that can bring down any person to feel they are worthless and undeserving of happiness. “This Crazy Love”, however, dispels that notion. 

Focusing on the author’s writing style, there is too much character introspection, and it disrupts the story’s flow. The mood swings of the characters are enough to give one whiplash. It feels as though the author gave this novel everything in a writer's tool box perhaps not realizing the dictum that is used in cooking: less is more. There is foreshadowing when it comes to Austin’s internal conflict, and to some extent this is true for Fiona as well. Prolonging a revelation is one of the things used in storytelling which is a good way of understanding a character’s conflict.  Unfortunately, in this case, it appears overly done.

M.P. Ceja