Did you know you can download free Harlequin books?

I'm always surfing for free books and today I stumbled across an old favorite.  I mean, I grew up on Harlequins.  I'd be thrilled to death to be published by them. (*hint hint* Harlequin Editors)
I've found a few for free on Amazon, here and there.  But today, low and behold I found the Holy Grail of free Harlequin books.

TryHarlequin.com

They have eighteen books for free downloads there.  That's right the big one eight.  Okay, three of them are in foreign languages, but if you're lucky enough to be a bilingual Spanish/English reader I'm envious.

Not only are the books free you can download them in several different formats.  Epub or PDF are available. That's good news for my Sony PRS (Read: ancient, expensive e-book reader).

They even have several genres. There's everything from Paranormal and Suspense to Inspirational and Historical.  So, guess what.  I downloaded them all. (Okay, not the ones in Spanish)
'Cuz you know me, I can't pass up a free read, especially if it's Romance.

I know I said I was gonna do 365 days of Amazon freebies, but it won't hurt anyone to throw in a free book from somewhere else will it?  (Say 'ow' if it does and I'll stop)
Besides a few of these are available on Amazon too.  Use my handy dandy Amazon search widget on the left sidebar to check.

Last I looked this book was $0.01 on Amazon. That almost free.

Without further ado, here's my review!  (ha ha, my mother would say, 'you're a poet and you don't know it')

Title: Once a Cowboy
Author: Linda Warren
Publisher: Harlequin (American Romance line)
Pages: approx 256 pages

Review:
Oh how I love sexy cowboys.  This may be the first cowboy romance I've reviewed, but rest assured it won't be the last.
Look at that cover model.  I just want to lick him.
Retired Pro bull rider Brodie Hayes finds out from sexy PI Alex Donovan that he's actually the child of a couple whose baby was stolen from the hospital forty years ago.
Well, there's one I haven't heard before. I guess these days us romance writers have to come up with some new and interesting premises to keep it fresh.  This one is a doozy.
Now, Harlequins are known for being short and sweet and I've always found that I wished they were longer.  So many times there are jumps in the story that I feel leave me hanging.  That happened a few times in this book, there were several spots in the beginning chapters that I found myself wishing the author would have made this book a bit longer (but would have had to publish it with somebody else because of HQs guidelines/rules).  Linda Warren wove it all together pretty well.
My biggest complaints were how long it took our hero Brodie to figure himself out.  I felt like a forty year old man, even one who found out his parents weren't really his, wouldn't be quite so whiny about it.  He was just a little to woe is me for my tastes.
I also didn't really get why Alex was attracted to him in the first place.  (Besides the fact that he was six feet of cowboy scrumptiousness)
This is (probably) the third book in a series about some rodeo-ing friends and I did feel a bit lost at times (especially the epilogue) when the author threw in details about these very minor secondary characters.  I again thought the book would have been better if it had been longer and I could have developed some attachment to those other hot cowboys.  I do however appreciate when an author gives you a glimpse into characters lives from past books.

I'm big on first lines, but this one didn't really do it for me.  You decide...
"The defunct air-conditioner spit out its last puffs of cool air about an hour ago."
This one would have grabbed me by the horns if this had been an erotic romance, but as it is, I say, 'eh.'

The plot being pretty original, the writing darn good with lots of emotions and an HEA I think it was one of my better free reads.

My recommendations:
I would have paid for this book, but not up to cover price. Maybe $2.99.
I may or may not seek more of this author's books out.  This was a pretty good book, but I didn't love it.
This was definitely worth the one-click.
I give it four stars.