Carolyn Brown – My Give a Damn is Busted

The third book in the Honky Tonk series, published October 1, 2010.
Genre: contemporary romance
Cover: meh, more abs less face please.



He’s just doing his job...
If Hank Wells thinks he can dig up dirt on the new owner of the Honkey Tonk beer joint for his employer, he’s got no idea what kind of trouble he’s courting...
She’s not going down without a fight...
If any dime store cowboy thinks he’s going to get the best of Larissa Morley – or her Honkey Tonk – then he’s got another think coming...
As secrets emerge, and passion vies with ulterior motives, it’s winner takes all at the Honkey Tonk....


Larissa Morley is the new owner of the Honkey Tonk, and she really made it a big success. It is getting busier than ever, even on the usually slow Monday. But she likes the work and the place, and she enjoys her new home. She has been all over the world, but now she has made a new life for herself here in Mingus, Texas. She has some great friends, and she has no intention at all to sell the Honkey Tonk, no matter how much money the Radner Corporation is throwing at her.
Of course, no one knows she has money enough of her own, or that she is known as Ruth Lawson.

Henry Hayes Radner Wells is also leading a double life. His parents were only a married a few months before they separated again, and he is living 11 months a year with his mother in the big city, and one month a year with his father on his cattle ranch. While he is working for his mother, he is Hayes Radner, the businessman. And when he is with his father, he is Hank Wells, playing at being a cowboy.
His mother is adamant at not only buying the Honkey Tonk, but the whole town or Mingus. She wants to raze it all to the ground, and build an amusement park. Hayes has no idea why, but if his mother wants it, she will get it. So going in undercover as Hank Wells will be easy enough, and perhaps he can find some dirt on Larissa Morley to make her sell the joint. As far as his investigators can find out, she did not exist before she became the new owner.

When Hank and Larissa meet in a car accident, sparks do fly. Of course Hank knows who Larissa is, but he did not expect her to look like that! That evening in her bar, Hank tries to get closer to Larissa. But Larissa just feels that something is off about him, and holds him on a distance. And her friend nails it: his neck is white and his hands too soft, he is not a real cowboy at all. But Hank’s father is getting older and needs to cut down work at the ranch, so this summer, Hank will have to do some real ranch work. And he needs to decide who he wants to be: Hayes Radner, or Hank Wells. His father will have to sell the ranch if he chooses to be Hayes.

Working together Hank and Larissa get closer and become friends and lovers, until Larissa finds out that Hank is Hayes, and that he betrayed her. He is the one who wants to buy her beloved Honkey Tonk bar from her.


I’ve bought this book purely because of the title. I could not resist it. And of course Blodeuedd likes to tempt me with reviews about cowboy romances, so I just wanted to try one. And I really enjoyed this one, even if I did read it out of order.

It was really fun to see those two circle around. Larissa tried to find out about Hank, and her investigators could not find anything about him, and vice versa. And Larissa kept dropping little details about her mother being in Paris, and visiting some famous restaurants abroad herself, and Hank just plain not believing her, thinking she was born in a trailer park or something like that.

The book never got predictable; I liked all the main characters, and the most fun thing? Their mothers are best friends and still they never met. Although their mothers have done their best to set them on blind dates with each other for years.

A fun story, a place I would like to visit (but not in summer!) and other books in this series I want to read. Larissa’s help Sharlene will certainly feature in the next book, and she is a very interesting character already. Yes, this is an author I will certainly read again.

8 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian