Excellent book. Anything by LaVyrle Spencer is excellent!!!!Hummingbird is one of those rare books that can be read again and again and still enjoy it as much as the first time...If you do like romance novels, you will be in for a pleasant surprise if you're used to the average romance novel. Spencer's characters are usually of an age, normal, often average in looks, but fiercely human.I have never had the pleasure to read such heartfelt and touching scenes in a novel in all of my life. The scene when Jesse comes back and confronts Abigail in her home and they're sitting by the wood burning stove is the most touching and beautiful scene. Sigh!Everyone knows someone who is similar to Miss Abigail (for me, my grandmother) and everyone wants to know someone like Jesse...The only thing I didn't like about this novel was how the rejected man was treated. He may not have been the best match for Abby, but he was a good, decent man and didn't deserve the way his engagement to Abby was broken. However, I adored this book soooo much, that this wasnt enough of an issue to dampen my enjoyment of the overall storyIt was so perfect, I guess we would all alike to think that's the way true love can work out.The ending of this story is unique and absorbing, full of visual imagery and sizzling sensuality. Wow! You will laugh, you will cry, you will not want to put this book down and when it's over, you will re-read all of the best parts of the book over and over again. I know I did!Thank you, Lavyrle, for your prodigious gifts!RESEÑA EN CASTELLANO...El bandido y el caballero…Ambos fueron heridos durante el mismo atraco al tren en la frontera de Colorado y dejado en la puerta de Abigail McKenzie para que cuidase de ellos.El bondadoso y cariñoso David, que le prometía una felicidad que ya no esperaba hallar, era todo cuanto una dama podría desear.Jesse representaba todo cuando odiaba: era grosero, violento, apuesto y perturbadoramente sensual.Pero era la indecente boca de Jesse la que la acosaba en sueños; era Jesse quien le hacía sentir un sinfín de cosas que una dama jamás debería sentir. Era Jesse quien le ponía a prueba cada hora del día. Abigail trató de resistirse a él con todo el estricto decoro que su férrea fuerza de voluntad le exigía… pero en su interior ardía un tórrido deseo durante mucho tiempo reprimido, un amor que podría obligarla a tomar una decisión que ninguna mujer debería verse forzada a tomar…Cada vez que leo un nuevo libro de LaVyrle Spencer pienso que no puede superarse más, que no habrá ninguno que pueda gustarme aún más todavía y termino ascendiendo en una nube de felicidad que solo un lector satisfecho puede sentir. Hummingbird es eso y más. Una historia que puede quitarte el sueño porque no quieres dejar de leerla y esto es definitivamente una señal positiva de que hay “libros” y “libros”, pero aquellos que nos mantienen en vilo y nos hacen hacer muecas en público de frustración y felicidad sin darnos cuenta, es sin lugar a dudas debido a la habilidad de crear grandes historias de amor por maravillosas escritoras como la Sra. Spencer.Colorado, 1879El tren está a punto de llegar a Stuart y todo el pueblo lo espera como siempre, lo raro es que está tardando fuera de lo habitual y la ansiedad se palpa entre todos. Pronto descubrimos que ha ocurrido un robo frustrado dejando al bandido gravemente herido y al caballero rescatador con una lesión menor. El dilema inmediato es quién va a ser voluntario para ayudarles en su recuperación ya que el doctor del pueblo no puede hacerse cargo en ese momento. Por supuesto, Abigail, nuestra protagonista, estando sin fondos prácticamente y a la vista de que ninguno muestra interés, se ofrece como voluntaria para tal tarea con la esperanza de ganar algo de dinero, pues la alternativa es trabajar en una taberna atendiendo mesas.El comienzo de la historia no es solamente un disparo al centro de la atención del lector, sino que se va volviendo más y más atractivo.La señorita Abigail McKenzie, de treinta y tres años de edad y soltera, ha vivido toda su vida en la pequeña ciudad de Junction Stuart, Colorado. Es respetada y al mismo tiempo de alguna manera temida por sus impecables buenos modales, adecuada y correcta en su comportamiento, va siempre perfectamente vestida y con un vocabulario impecable, tiene un estricto código que ha seguido toda su vida habiéndolo aprendido a temprana edad por su madre, lo que es aceptable y entendible. Todo el mundo sabe que ella es una dama. Se le reconoce como hija devota al haber cuidado durante trece años a su padre, confiable, virtuosa, ordenada y precisa. Pero pocos en este pequeño pueblo saben de su vida y de la soledad que siente.Así pues, los heridos son transportados a su casa. Por un lado tendremos al “bandido” Jesse, herido de gravedad, inconsciente en un principio pero gracias a la ayuda de Abbie se va recuperando lentamente. De buena apariencia (diría magnífica) y con un vocabulario directo y atroz para el gusto de Abbie, representa la clase de hombre Alfa que resume sex appeal. Con su relajada personalidad y con poca paciencia para las reglas de la sociedad, conducirá a Abbie a la locura. Abigail se rige dolorosamente por un estricto código de corrección y se ve amenazada constantemente por esta fresca y directa muestra de carácter. Poco a poco va cediendo a la curiosidad por experimentar todas las emociones que ella misma se ha prohibido toda su vida. Entre los dos surgirán bromas, batallas verbales, intentos de caricias, conversaciones de reconocimiento y poco a poco, como a fuego lento, nacerá el deseo, ardiente y sensual en todos los aspectos. Una de las cosas que más me gustaron del personaje de Jesse es su anhelo por liberar a Abbie de sus propias autoinducidas restricciones. Las bromas entre estos dos son tan buenas que me encontré a mí misma riendo en más de una ocasión. El estilo de vida de Jesse es completamente opuesto al de Abbie y no hay nada remilgado en él. Vive bajo sus propias reglas. A esta mezcla se le añade el otro paciente que se recupera de su lesión: David Melcher, el salvador- caballero- perfecto, cuyos valores morales son muy similares a los de Abbie, por encima atractivo en una forma más tierna. Muestra una gran admiración e interés en cortejarla y aquí es donde vuelan las chispas. En el triángulo amoroso que se forma entre estos tres personajes y la encrucijada de Abbie entre lo correcto- seguro y la tentación a “dejarse llevar”.Se trata de una historia de amor inolvidable que hechiza y que contra todo pronóstico destapa una gran “sorpresa”. Lo que el lector “creerá en un principio” (y no voy a desvelar más) dará un giro de 180º cuando salga a la luz un increíble secreto.Como curiosidad, os comento que esta es la segunda novela de la Sra. Spencer y fue rechazada por dos editoriales, aunque Jove la publicó más tarde en 1983. Ambas editoriales habían criticado el libro por contener, según ellos, demasiado humor, cuestión en la que estoy en completo desacuerdo. Efectivamente hay momentos hilarantes, pero la base de la historia es de una complejidad dramática como en todas las creaciones de la autora. Otras de las cuestiones que habían criticado es su limitación escénica, ya que la mayor parte del libro se enmarcó en una sola casa. Spencer opinó que "el drama que ocurre en el interior, es lo que enriquece el carácter emocional en los personajes", y se negó a volver a escribir dramáticamente el libro, de lo cual me alegro porque su acierto es genuino. Me recuerda a una película, Un Dios Salvaje (Carnage) de Roman Polanski, aunque para nada en similitudes en la historia, sí por el contexto en la que se desarrolla también la película, en una casa, sin por eso restar brillantez e interés por parte del espectador.La única pega que le pongo al libro es la forma en la que el personaje masculino rechazado por Abbie fue tratado. Creo que no se merecía ese trato y que la autora podría haber suavizado el desencadenamiento dramático de la ruptura en una forma más amable. De cualquier forma esto no cambió mi opinión del libro.Concluyendo, Hummingbird ha sido una delicia. Un libro enmarcado en el Oeste americano, con personajes deleitables, trama inteligente, gran tensión sexual, situaciones cómicas y dramáticas que se entrelazan hasta llevarte a un verdadero clímax de aceptación y como siempre lo mejor de todo es la sencillez en los personajes de LaVyrle Spencer y su capacidad para caracterizar y transformar brillantemente lo sencillo o lo “normal” en maravilloso.
Both were wounded in the same train robbery in frontier Colorado and left on Abigail McKenzie's doorstep to nurse back to life.Gentle, loving David, promising her a happiness she'd lost hope of finding, was all a lady could wish for.Jesse stood for everything she hated: he was rude, violent, roughly handsome and disturbingly sensual.But it was Jesse's mocking mouth that troubled her dreams, Jesse who made her feel a hundred things a lady should never know, Jesse who challenged her every waking hour. She fought him with all the stiff propriety her stubborn will commanded ... but in her burned the aching embers of love too long denied--love that would force her to a choice no woman should ever have to make. Oh, it was a treat to deal with the prim and proper Miss Abigail and the rough and tough Jesse. How they rubbed each other the wrong way. Him with his devil-may-care attitude and her with her modest, maidenly ways. "I do not allow profanity in this house." "Oh, I've seen your kind before - bound up so tight with corset stays that you've got indigestion." What was it about Abigail McKenzie that got under his skin? "I've brought some bed clothes of my father's. Put them on and leave them on. I'm sick and tired of looking at your hairy legs and chest.""So you say." He puffed out the chest in question and rubbed its furred surface as if it were spun gold. Abbie, Abbie, he thought, my little hummingbird, what are you doing to me? "Do I haunt you, Abbie?"
What do You think about Hummingbird (1987)?
A Second Chance at Love From a Very Unlikely PlaceSet in 1879 in Colorado, this is the story of the very proper Miss Abigail McKenzie who decides she needs to make some money to keep herself and her home. So, when two men, wounded on a train in what was thought to be a robbery, show up in her town and the doc says he needs a place to put them—at the railroad’s expense—she volunteers. One is the “hero” and one is the “train robber,” but it matters little to Abigail who is good a tending the sick after caring for her father until his death.The “hero” turns out to be a shoe salesman who is every bit the gentleman that Abigail is a lady. And soon, 33-year-old Abigail is dreaming that she may have a suitor to make up for the one she lost 13 years earlier. David Melcher, whose wound turns out to be only a big toe shot off, is quite enamored with Miss Abigail, but most of her time is taken up with the “robber” who is gravely wounded in his upper leg. Through a series of events, Abigail saves his life and yet when he awakens, he’s like a bear coming out of a cave, snapping at her every move.Spencer does a brilliant job of keeping up the tension and the banter going between Abigail and her most difficult patient, the handsome and darkly sensual man who only gives her his first name, “Jesse.” It is all the more amazing when you consider that most of the book occurs in her home and in a single room, her bedroom occupied by the recovering train robber.Jesse comes to think of Abigail as his “hummingbird” as she is small and flits about in a most efficient way. And he views with disdain the would be hero Melcher who would have Abigail as his own. Jesse and Abigail are not initially attracted to each other: she is too proper, too stiff; and he is too crude, too rough. But Jesse sees deeper into her heart and her past than Abigail does and over time, painfully sorts out what has her bound in the rigid rules of propriety.Sometimes the courtship of two creatures is a mad, frantic dance—a biting, clawing fight before the passion overtakes them. Such is the mating dance of Jesse and Abigail. She resists her feelings for him until she is forced to face them and choose. Will Abigail choose the very proper Mr. Melcher, or the crude Jesse?Spencer deftly weaves a “second chance” story where both hero and heroine learn something of their true hearts’ desires. It is rich in detail with superb dialog, intricately interlaced with just enough action to keep you turning pages. Some of the secondary characters are priceless. Though there is not much of the Old West here, you still get an accurate picture of life in the small town of Stuart’s Junction in late 19th century America. A splendid romance and a very worthy read.
—Regan Walker
Stuart's Junction, Colorado. The morning run from the Rocky Mountain Railway shows up very late, and with two injured men to boot - one of them allegedly attempted to rob the train and the other heroically saved the day. Doc needs someone to tend the two men, and since no one wants a dangerous criminal in their home the railroad's going to have to pay for it, and Miss Abigail definitely could use the money. Miss Abigail lost her one chance at happiness at twenty when she committed to caring for her father and her fiance headed for greener pastures. In the following years Miss Abigail has set the tone for all things prim and proper in Stuart's Junction."The woman had starch in everything to her bloomers to her backbone, and it was amusing trying to make it crackle."Mild mannered shoe salesman David Melcher is the man who *saved* the train and takes a bit of a shine to Miss Abigail, while meantime she's locking horns with the more seriously wounded Jesse who bears all the physical traits of a notorious outlaw - tall, dark and handsome and looks pretty darn good with his shirt off. David's wound is less severe and he's soon packed off to sell more shoes. Miss Abigail is left caring for bed-ridden Jesse until he's well enough to be turned over to the railroad company for trial and let's just say that sparks continue to fly,"They eyed one another like two bighorns deciding whether to butt or back off."Will Jessie work his way into Miss Abigail's heart? Or will the ever-so-dull David Melcher return to win her heart? Is David Melcher really the down home all around good guy he appears to be? Is Jesse really a black-hearted train robbing scoundrel, or is there more under the surface? Will her corset and bloomers stay forever laced?This was my first Lavyrle Spencer romance and won't likely be my last. It was a quick and easy read and I had a lot of fun watching Jesse and Abigail and their fiery mating dance, but I did find Jesse's methods of courting Abigail a bit too heavy-handed at times. I don't want to spoil by going into specifics, but it may be a turn off some readers - YMMV. The's also some sex, and while tamer than what you can find in today's romances does go into a bit more description and goes on for quite a few pages, so those readers who prefer their sex scenes taking place behind closed doors might want to prepare to skim a bit. 4/5 stars.
—Misfit
A classic Western Romance - old school style. Ahh... I can almost smell the gunpowder and feel the grit against my imaginary cowboy boots.Although the blurb indicates a love triangle - it was a no brainer that Jesse is the one true love interest. The antagonistic romance was truly antagonistic to the point of throwing things at each other - but it had a hilarious slapstick quality to it that made me grin.Jesse Jesse Jesse...although I have a thing against moustaches...still when I think of you...
—Head in the clouds
