I think the summary of Holding On To Heaven is a little misleading. Yes, two brothers are in love with the same woman but the love triangle isn't the main focus of the plot. Lauren moves to Minnesota to live with her aunt and uncle as stirrings of the Civil War rumble through the South. Lauren is trying to get acclimated to living on a ranch. And then she meets Creed and the lasting impression she is left with is not flattering. Whenever they are in each other's presence, they argue and goad each other. We are led to believe that they act this way because they both are attracted to each other but do not want to admit it. The transition from enemies to lovers was fast and wasn't too believable to me because it was so fast. I can understand going from anger to sex; but not to love. There was no romance between them, just passion and heat so I couldn't understand why Lauren or Creed felt that the other was in their hearts.HOTH is divided into different parts to introduce the other plot -- Sage and Wanapaya. Again, another fast moving love story but I found this one more believable because Sage saved Wanapaya's life and helped heal him. She watched over him. I can see how that can turn into a romantic relationship. In Lauren's case, she marries Brand (Creed's brother) but we never see any interaction between the two as a married couple. Brand supposedly is in love with Lauren but we never really see the development of his feelings. I feel like we missed out on a lot and were expected to just believe it without really seeing it.Even though HOTH is billed as a historical romance, I felt that the romance aspect of the story was lacking. I didn't feel any romance from any of these characters, especially Lauren and Creed. Due to the story taking place during the Civil War and a Sioux uprising, there was a lot of dead, blood and gore and that is so the opposite of romance.Holding Onto Heaven sort of just ends, with no satisfying resolution to Lauren's storyline and an odd epilogue with a mystery man. So I'm thinking (and hoping) that there will be another book to continue on with the story. I felt like I was left hanging especially since as a lover of romance, every romance has to have a HEA. And I felt that was no true HEA at the end. Despite the issues I had, I enjoyed reading Holding On To Heaven. I think this book would have been better as a full length novel due to the complexity of the plot. I wish more attention had been spent on developing the romances/relationships between the characters instead of the ugliness of the war and uprising.
