Dakota Farm (The Dakota Series)

The story of Lindsay Snyder who travels to North Dakota to try to solve a mystery of surrounding her grandmother and fall in love with a farmer, Gage Sinclair--who along with the town council of Buffalo Valley is trying to save a dying town. Lindsay accepts the yearly position of a teacher for the local high school school.

This is a very short story (27 pages) prequel to Debbie Macomber's Dakota series. I read this after reading the Dakota Born, the first full-length book in the series. It easily sets up the series, but I enjoyed it just as much reading it after the first book. You can't expect too much in a 27 page story, so my limited expectations allowed me to simply enjoy the short ride. It's a modern day marriage-of-convenience romance trope which is a fun favorite of mine. The H/h were mature and likeable and I would have loved to have seen their relationship develop more slowly, but it was a short delight all the same.

I'm thinking those behind this little scheme of offering just a few pages when buyers think they are buying/getting the entire book is going to backfire on them. The book sounded great but I'll take a pass on the con game. Bad news for all, including the store. Thank you to the reviewers and unfortunate readers for lettering us know what they are up to.

Knowing the fun of this author's previous work and reading the ending blurbs about several other potential romances in the Dakota series, I forgive the author for this short story. After all, it was inexpensive so I jumped at it before checking to see what other readers wrote about it. I have loved her Cedar Cove series and this seems like a good start to a satisfying series. Her books are delicious and satisfying. I recommend them and will probably read more of the Dakota series even though it will be more expensive.

I am rarely disappointed in a Debbie Macomber book, but then, I really do not consider this work to be a book. This is, at best, the OUTLINE of a book. The characters are not fleshed out, and this seems to be a bare bones presentation of what could have been a really good story. I am disappointed that this was published "as a story" when it is really, really NOT story-worthy.

The possibilities are there, and there is enough there to be interesting, but oh, so much is totally left out! If I were the editor on this one, I'd have sent it back to the writer for oh, about 300 more pages. Minimum.

Don't let this turn you off Debbie Macomber, but beware - this is a stingy imitation of a very, very, very short story.