A Rare Sensation is the second in Silhouette Desire’s Dynasties: The Ashtons continuity series and a total cliché of a book. Luckily it’s short, so I didn’t waste a lot of time reading it.

Abigail Ashton is the granddaughter of Spencer Ashton – evil patriarch of the clan. She and her brother were abandoned by their hoochie mama and raised by their uncle on a large farm/ranch where they grew up good, clean and respectful. Abby has just finished veterinary school and is visiting her Ashton half-siblings at their Louret vineyards when she meets Russ Gannon, Louret’s manager.

Russ is a wizard at growing grapevines and a part-time rodeo cowboy. When Abby first sees him, he has a horse with a cut fetlock. She moves in to examine it, and one look at her cute little butt has Russ in a state of button busting tumescence (a state in which he remains for about 95 percent of the book). Russ is entranced not only with said butt but by Abby’s cute dimples and red hair too. But when he finds out she’s a veterinarian, he feels depressed since he only finished high school.

That’s the conflict folks – Abby is a vet and Russ only finished high school. Oh, he envisions a short but fun affair, but when he finds out Abby is a virgin, he decides not to try anything. But she has other ideas and they end up making love. Still, though, Abby is a veterinarian and Russ only finished high school and is Not Worthy Of Her, so he forces a separation then goes off to ride a bull to forget her.

There’s a soupcon of information about the Ashton family part of the series, when Russ and Abby go to a party at Spencer Ashton’s home, but they never meet him, just another Spencer half-sibling whom I am sure we will meet in a forthcoming book.

Neither Spencer nor Abby are jerks or obnoxious, but they are bland and boring. I’ve read this type of book so many times that not even Nora Roberts could make it interesting. Abby was nice and sweet and perky, and Russ is a nice guy and smarter than he thinks, and that’s about all there is to them.

If you are following this mini-series, you can easily skip A Rare Sensation since it doesn’t advance that part of the story one bit. And if you are fond of romances featuring cowboys or ones in which the characters come from two separate worlds, there are many, many, many titles that are better than this one. I’d give it a pass.