About the book:
Jilted by a fortune hunter, cowgirl Cassidy McClare is a spunky Texas oil heiress without a fortune who would just as soon hogtie a man as look at him. Hoping a summer visit with her wealthy cousins in San Francisco will help her forget her heartache, Cassidy travels west. But no sooner is she settled in beautiful California than Jamie McKenna, a handsome pauper looking to marry well, captures her heart. When Jamie discovers the woman he loves is poorer than he is, Cassidy finds herself bucked by love a second time. Will Jamie discover that money can't buy love after all? And can Cassidy ever learn to fully trust her heart to a man?
With delectable descriptions and a romantic sensibility, bestselling author Julie Lessman brings the Gilded Age to life in this sumptuous new series. Readers will faithfully follow Lessman to the West Coast for more romance, passion, and surprising revelations found in Love at Any Cost.
Describe Cassidy
McClare.
Cassie is a sweet and sassy Texas oil heiress whose
daddy’s wells have run dry, leaving her
high and dry when her “pretty boy” fiancé dumps her. But that tough Texas
veneer of hers hides a vulnerable and tender heart inside this quirky but
lovable cowgirl who’s as natural and down to earth as cow patties in a field of
Texas wildflowers.
Here’s a clip from the book where we see this lasso-loving
heroine through the eyes of our handsome hero Jamie MacKenna:
At twenty-five and newly graduated from Stanford Law, he
was used to a warmer reception from women—a lot warmer, as a matter of fact—and
although the petite blond was pretty in a cute and clumsy kind of way, she
certainly didn’t compare to some of the women who vied for his attention. A
slow exhale breezed over his lips. Although never had he seen more unusual eyes—the
color of his favorite green agate marble as a boy—like pale green jade,
hypnotic, mesmerizing, fringed with honeyed lashes as thick as her Texas drawl.
Does she have a
passion for something?
You mean besides hogtying pretty boys and sending them packing??
Yes! Cassie has a passion for the underdog, those people who have been
ostracized and ridiculed by others. Because of her commitment to teach on the
local Indian reservation and her close friendship with two young women who are
Indians, Cassie is shunned by the prissy debutantes and their upper-crust
mothers, never quite fitting into the high society of Humble, Texas. Which is
why her Aunt Cait’s Hand of Hope School for disadvantaged young women in the
Barbary Coast is so appealing to her, to once again be a teacher there who can reach
out to the underdog.
Is there something
that gets on her nerves?
HA! The hero Jamie MacKenna, BIG TIME!! Not only does he
remind her of the “pretty boy” who just jilted her back in Texas, but she sees
him as nothing more than a “yellow-bellied snake of a womanizer” after he
steals a kiss.
Does she have a
quirk?
Well, she’s rather fond of electric cattle
prods—especially when Jamie gives her problems, but she also packs her lasso in
her suitcase wherever she goes, along with her boots and spurs. More cowgirl
than wealthy oil heiress over the years, Cassie was the type of little girl who
slept with her lasso rather than a bear.
What drew you to
make her a pool shark and a cowgirl?
Well, I wanted a quirky heroine, someone who was down-home
and natural beneath the Gibson Girl hairstyle and stylish clothes that mama
forces her to wear when she visits her wealthy and proper San Francisco cousins.
Cassie’s basically a tomboy, the only child of a formerly prosperous Texas
oilman and rancher, so her daddy teaching her to be proficient at the three “p’s,”—poker,
pinochle and pool—gave her the quirky edge I needed when she trounces Jamie at
all three. I chose pool as the main pursuit for several scenes because it was a
sport that requires skill and movement, which made the scene more fun and
lively than a simple card game.
Did you have
someone in mind as you wrote her? If so, who?
“Are you okay?” Nudging the boater up, he held out a blunt hand
attached to a muscled arm that strained beneath a crisp, white pinstripe shirt,
its casually rolled sleeves in stark contrast to a meticulous four-in-hand tie
and a high starched collar. He could have walked off the pages of Men’s Wear Magazine, easily six foot one
with a boyish smile that lent a roguish air Cassie recognized all too well. A
thick curl of dark brown hair that was almost black toppled over his forehead,
obviously a stray from the slicked-back style of the day. Hazel eyes the color
of coffee with cream assessed her with a crimp of concern wedged between thick,
dark brows, reminding her so much of Mark, she cringed.
Make that cold, bitter
coffee.
Hand still extended, he eased into a smile that at one time would
have generated as much heat as the platform beneath her body, a gleam of white
in a chiseled face that sported a California tan. “I beg your pardon, miss, but
I never even saw you.” A sparkle warmed his gaze as it slowly trailed down the
upturned brim of her hat, past renegade curls from her upswept hair to her
white silk shirtwaist, hesitating long enough to prompt a blush in her cheeks. “Which
is pretty hard to believe,” he mumbled, almost to himself. His bold look
continued to roam her gored navy skirt only to halt with several blinks at the
peek of her forbidden cowboy boots—the ones she’d put on after Mama and Daddy left the station. A grin inched across his
face as his eyes slowly trailed back up as naturally as his dimples deepened
with the lift of his smile. Heat suffused her cheeks, as much from the obscene
number of petticoats Mother had insisted she wear as the Romeo’s frank perusal.
Flattery will get you nowhere, mister.
Her lips took a slant. Though it’d certainly gotten Mark’s ring on her finger.
She issued a silent grunt. A history
lesson unto itself, she thought, the
smell of horse manure from buggies lining the terminal oddly comforting.
And appropriate.
Does he have a
passion for something?
Ah, yes—as a street rat who grew up in a brothel on the
Barbary Coast, Jamie’s passion is to afford a surgery for his crippled sister
whose infirmity he blames on himself, and to see both is mother and sister living
in the lap of luxury on Nob Hill.
Is there something
that annoys him?
Actually Jamie is pretty easy-going, but he does get
miffed when anyone mistreats the prostitutes who used to be his neighbors or
the young street urchins who roam the streets of the Coast. He also gets rather
ticked at Cassie mid-book when she agrees to consider courting him only if he goes to church twice a week,
reads Pilgrim’s Progress with her,
and keeps his hands to himself. :)
Does he have a
quirk?
Not a “quirk,” per se, but a definite mindset about
marrying well, taking great pains to pursue only wealthy young women with
political connections so he can afford an operation for his sister. The
illegitimate son of a 15-year-old girl who worked in a dance hall to avoid
starving, Jamie is also determined to become a senator so he can legislate productive
change in the Barbary Coast, making sure young women aren’t trapped in the same
vicious lifestyle as his mother had been.
Did you have
someone in mind as you wrote him? If so, who?
Oh, yes! I pictured Jamie and his personality a lot like
this picture of Matt Bomer (from White
Collar TV show). Gorgeous, mischievously handsome, and the type of man who
sets a girl’s pulse a-pumping at first sight.
Here is the video for this book.
