I Wanted to Slap Julie Garwood for this Tragedy of a Movie!
This was the worse adaption from book to movie I've ever seen!

I fell in love with Julie Garwood's book, For the Roses. It is a wonderfully sexy, mysterious, and funny story! I was so excited to find that a movie was made on one my favorite books. Boy was I in for a disappointment!

There's trivial things I can point to in the movie, but what's way, way worse is that the only thing that is correct in the movie are the names of the characters.

I was so PISSED OFF that the main characters, Mary Rose and Harrison, didn't even like each other until the VERY end. Harrison was a puny, annoying character (not at all lovable) and Mary Rose... well let's just say that I hate how Jennifer Garner portrays her. I bet she didn't even read the book! And then Mary Rose falls in love with some shoot-em-up cowboy! Where'd that come from? AND THE BROTHERS? Let's not even get started... or shall we? One of them dies and one of them marries an Indian woman. The family has a feud. I don't even see the loving connection between them all as portrayed in the book!

I was laughing and yelling the whole way through the movie. Laughing because it was so cheesy and yelling because the movie and book are two totally different stories. It's not Julie Garwood's fault that the movie is so very, very bad. I bet she was just as annoyed with the directors of the film. She's just too polite!

Terrible! ***BOOK SPOILERS***
Rose Hill was not For the Roses. It's like they just robbed the book of the characters' names! I know that movies based on books make changes to help the transistion to the screen but the butchery done here was above and beyond.
Mary Rose was a stong intelligent woman in the book. Her brothers sent her off to school in St. Louis not in the back of wagons. She was in love with a scottish man named Harrison not Fergus. Harrison was a big strong lawyer who worked for her English father. The nannie who helped take her was killed at the very start. And it was her father's right hand man who did it. Mary Rose goes to visit her father because she wants to but comes home because they want to change her. Her and Harrison are happily married and she is preggers by the end of the book.
Some of the other major differences are that Cole does not die. And Adam is what holds the Clayborne family together. And they would never abandon each other! Also where was Mama Rose, she could have been squeezed in there somewhere!
The movie aside from the book the movie was just lacking. I dont recommend the movie at all. However the books (For the Roses, The Clayborne Brides, and Come the Spring) are WONDERFUL!!!

Nothing like the book!
If you've never read the Julie Garwood book on which this is based, you might find the movie just mediocre. If you've read "For the Roses", you will hate this movie. It is NOTHING like the book. Basically, they take the names and premise, and then twist it into something unrecognizeable.

whatever you do, don't read the book before you see the movie!!!
Purely for viewer satisfaction, I would definitely recommend that everyone should read the book AFTER they have seen the movie. That way, they won't be so horribly disappointed by the movie. As someone who absolutely adores JG books-her witty dialogue, spunky heroines, to die for male leads, poignant emotional scenes, etc-I was really excited to see the movie after I read For the Roses (which is the type of book that after you read the last line you just sit there and sigh with a silly smile on your face, then jump up to see if there are any related books starring the characters that endeared their way right into your heart in the space of 400 pages!). I was so disappointed when I actually saw the movie I could have cried. As other reviewers have said, the plot was absolutely changed and two of the beloved main characters from the book die!!!! I realize that in adapting the book to the screen, things had to change and even be left out....but still! Harrison was her brother in the movie and not her love interest (Fergus Carol???????). Adam takes a wife (which he eventually does in his own story One Red Rose) and no mention other than a very brief one is made of Mama Rose! The book was titled For the Roses b/c of the Roses-plural. Mama Rose's presence is felt throughout the book and the movie definitely suffers for this lack. Finally, I think the biggest insult of all is that the major theme of the book is completely ignored: the bond of family. The conclusion of the movie makes it abundantly clear that the main characters do not still feel bound by the love and loyalty that bound them as a family in an alley when they were children. The movie makes it sound like Mary Rose was the only thing holding them together...which intially, sure it was. It was almost like the movie was saying that the brothers wouldn't have stuck together at all if not for Mary. That is the most heartbreaking thing of it all.
The relationships between the members of the Claybourne family boost this "good" book into the rarefied field of books that leave you emotionally touched, fulfilled, and ultimately happy--as opposed to other "good" books that only leave you with a smile on your face. It's the difference between a fast-food meal and a five course meal at a five star restaurant, and that's the difference between the movie and the book.
If you haven't read the book, then watch the movie. Maybe you'll even enjoy if you don't know how much better it could be. If you've read the book, don't bother with the movie. Just move right onto stories of Adam, Doug, Travis, and Cole. Much, much more fulfilling-trust me!

All On It's Own
I read the books years ago and just saw the movie tonight. I was surprised by the movie. It had been a while since I've read the books so I couldn't remember if the movie accurately portrayed them. It did not. If you're looking for an accurate account of the books this is not the movie for you, but if you'd like to be entertained by a heart-warming movie then watch "Rose Hill". The movie is good all on it's own but compared to the books it is lacking.