Title: Cera’s Place
Author: Elizabeth McKenna
ISBN: 978-1468110272
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Rating: B
Heat Level: 4; Very Hot!
My Source: Author

Cera’s Place is a beautiful and sweeping love story that you can easily fall in love with.  With compassionate characters and enticing drama, Elizabeth McKenna writes a charming historical western romance readers will adore!

Jake Tanner has had his fair share of heart ache.  While off fighting in the Civil War, his wife and new born baby died leaving him holding on to nothing more than a promise he made to a friend in the service.  Now years later he finds himself at Cera’s Place in California, fulfilling his promise yet reluctant to leave right away.  For one thing, the owner Cera Cassidy, is a beauty that has stirred feelings Jake thought were long dead.  He soon finds out Cera and her friends are in serious trouble and though she does everything to push him away, Jake does everything he can to make it clear he isn’t going anywhere.

Cera runs a respectable business in town and has a no nonsense attitude.  So when Mr. Tanner, with the wounded eyes and the gorgeous face, walks through her door she quickly makes it clear to him that she doesn’t have time for any distractions.  Her time is occupied with chasing down the town’s villain who is kidnapping and selling innocent Chinese women to local brothels.  But Jake Tanner is nothing if not persistent.  He forces his way into her life trying to protect her one moment and stealing passionate kisses in the next.  While Cera does everything she can to deny their attraction, she may be too late.  He’s the last thing Cera needs in her life right now, but as she soon discovers, he may be the one person she can’t live without.

Cera’s Place by Elizabeth McKenna is a fun and exciting western romance!  I highly recommend this for fans wanting a tale about love and second chances.  McKenna creates a wonderful setting, with an interesting story line and fascinating characters.  Those were just a few of the things to absolutely love about this novel.  You also have a great cast of characters, each more lively and entertaining than the next.  They gave this novel that special western charm and heart that romance fans can truly appreciate.

It’s easy to fall in love with the hero, Jake Tanner.  He is the quiet hero with a lot of guilt on his shoulders, but a lot of compassion in his heart.  He has had a rough life and he is still dealing with plenty of the pain.  It’s these minor glimpses into his sensitive side that I adored the most.  Not only is he captivating, but he has a fierce determination to see things through.  Really, it’s what motivates him the most and for a while it’s the only thing that keeps him going from day to day.  Yes, this means he’s a tortured hero…and I love him all the more for it!  These kind of characters don’t get much better than this.

Cera was a gentle, yet fierce heroine.  On the one hand, there isn’t a poor soul alive that she wouldn’t extend some form of help to.  On the other, anybody who hurt her or her family would weep when they encountered her wrath.  Like Jake, she was compassionate, yet determined and relentless.  What I adored the most was her desire to never accept things the way they are.  She always strove to make the world a better place just because she felt it was the right thing to do.  She was a heroine you could easily relate to and extremely courageous.  You couldn’t help but admire that.

My problems with the novel are very minor.  Occasionally, there are a few slips with the authenticity of the dialect. It would come and go…but it was very rare and you really have to be paying extremely close attention to catch it.  I also thought the novel traveled just a little too fast.  I would have enjoyed a few more chapters getting to know these characters and reading more about them falling in love.  Still, McKenna provides a captivating story that is thoroughly entertaining.

Cera’s Place by Elizabeth McKenna should be one of the next books added to your library.  It has an absolutely fun cast of secondary characters and a couple at the story’s heart that you can really root for.  This novel has that fantastic western flare that makes it fabulously entertaining and is near impossible to put down once you start!