Genre: western romance

Review: The Comeback Cowboy by Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Comeback Cowboy by Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Maisey YatesThe Comeback Cowboy by Maisey Yates, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Jasper Creek #4
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on April 25, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

They may not have been friends when they were younger but now, they’ll work together to save the camp that saved them and, maybe, even find love in the process…
The alumni of Camp Phoenix, a summer program for at-risk youth, went their separate ways, but now they’ve been called back to help the camp reopen for a new crop of kids. Now successful adults, the four women pledge to restore the grounds to their former glory, if long-standing rivalries and old flames don’t get in the way first…
Bree White fought hard to get away from her criminal family and all of the reminders of her past until Sheriff Flint Decker brings all those feelings back and more. Attorney Violet Cook owes her life to Camp Phoenix and is determined to save the camp…but who’s going to save her from the temptation of long-time crush US Marshal Lincoln Traeger? Kinley Parker never left Camp Phoenix, dedicating her life to it, and has no time for pushy cowboys like Jackson Hart until butting heads leads to sparks. The daughter of the camp’s founder. Clementine McClain has always wanted to follow in her law-abiding father’s footsteps, but her father’s protégé and former bad boy Duke Cody has her breaking all the rules.  

My Review:

The image of the phoenix is a powerful one, a being of flame, rising from the ashes of its previous self. That’s the image that Sheriff Bill McClain of Jasper Creek invoked when he built Phoenix Camp. He made the camp into a place where teens who were heading down bad roads would have a chance to take a breath in a safe place and look hard at their past selves and, with support and understanding, choose to rise from their own ashes.

When The Comeback Cowboy opens, Bill has passed and the camp has been neglected for years. It’s going to take time, money and more than a bit of elbow grease to bring the place back from its own ashes.

Just as both McClain and the camp he created once helped its alumni pick up their pieces and move on, so now it’s their turn to bring the place that helped them back so that Camp Phoenix can help a new generation of kids who need it as much as they did.

So there’s not just one “comeback cowboy” in this book, there are four; Flint, Lincoln, Jackson and Duke. All are now in their early 30s, and they all “graduated” from the school of hard knocks but, thanks to McClain, found a better path than their lives had originally intended them for. Jackson Hart, forced to retire from the DEA after a career-ending injury, now owns the old camp. And he’s determined to turn it back into the saving place it once was – and to save himself as well.

His friends all come back to help him with the many, many dirty jobs that will be needed to make that happen. And he coaxes, persuades, orders, whatever, a group of the successful women who once walked that same misguided path that he and his friends did. Women who owe their success to Bill McClain and Camp Phoenix every bit as much as those comeback cowboys do.

The story in The Comeback Cowboy is the story of putting, not the band – because this bunch was never all that together – but the camp back together. It’s about restoring the place and the traditions that made them each what they became.

A restoration that takes place in the background as the four women; Bree, Violet, Kinley and Clementine – who all hated and envied each other as teenagers – bond into a sisterhood that surprises them all. And find the love that none of them ever thought they would have or deserve – after the pasts they all share.

Escape Rating A-: The Comeback Cowboy is both one story and four stories at the same time. It’s about what the camp meant to them in the past, and what they hope it will mean to others in the future. It’s about giving back and not giving up.

And its four romances – all taking place at the same time and in the same place. But each of them just a bit different in spite of those similarities.

Bree and Flint’s romance is absolutely enemies-to-lovers. It’s hard to think of a situation that would create more enmity in the past – as well as embarrassment in the present – than their original not-cute-at-all meeting. When Bree was 14, and Flint was a newly fledged police officer, he arrested Bree for shoplifting. Instead of booking her he brought her to McClain which led to the camp which put her on the path to a much brighter future.

But she’s never forgotten and is not too sure she’s forgiven either. Falling in love with the man who arrested her was NOT in Bree’s plans. Stealing his hat, on the other hand, sparks off something special.

Each of the women ‘steals’ something from one of the men. An important something, like Flint’s hat. Or an annoying something, like Jackson’s ever-present and frequently squawking bullhorn. As love languages go, it’s certainly different.

At the same time it’s emblematic of who these people are and what parts of their lives they still need to re-think before they are ready for their own future. In other words, each of them needs to rise up like the phoenix one more time, and those so-important items are symbols of what they need to let go of to make that climb.

Violet and Lincoln’s romance is a bit of a second-chance one, as she had a huge crush on him back in the day, while he noticed how much she pretended to hate him but didn’t see her as more than a little girl – because she was much too young. Now they’re both adults, and both of them have traumas in their pasts that they need to let go of, symbolized by Lincoln’s grandmother’s locket that Violet makes off with.

In their different ways, both Kinley and Jackson need to, as his friends tell him, unclench. He can’t always be in control, and has to learn to let go of the facade that he can, while Kinley needs to let herself stand up for herself. Their ‘bone’ of contention is that damnable bullhorn that Jackson keeps putting between himself and the world that no one can truly control.

Clementine McClain and Duke Cody have known each other for years. She’s McClain’s daughter – and now she’s Duke’s cop partner. Their romance has the flavor of the ‘best friend’s little sister’ vibe, as Duke has watched Clementine grow up and does feel protective of her. That she’s his mentor’s daughter adds the spice of the forbidden to the whole thing. Once she was forbidden, but not anymore.

Three out of the four romances worked really well for this reader. It didn’t seem like Jackson and Kinley’s romance had quite enough time for it to not seem a bit too fast and more than a bit convenient, but the others had more than enough history to make what would otherwise be insta-love really zing. Clementine’s story had the added bonus of her personal journey from ‘one of the boys’, because that was the only way her dad could deal with her, to accepting herself as she is. That it’s all wrapped in how much she loves her dad, misses him, and still resents just how much he made her feel like her being female was an embarrassment to him added an interesting layer of complexity to her story.

In summary, because this does need one, I loved three of the romances, thought the fourth was OK, and found the story of the camp and its rise from its ashes to be delightful. If you love any of the included authors, or are looking for a bit of a contemporary western romance sampler, The Comeback Cowboy is a treat!

Review: Sweet Home Cowboy by Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Sweet Home Cowboy by Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin CrewsSweet Home Cowboy by Maisey Yates, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Jasper Creek #3
Pages: 448
Published by Hqn on March 29, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Four half sisters create the family they’ve always dreamed of in this enchanting quartet from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews.
The Hathaway sisters might have grown up apart, but when they agree to move to Jasper Creek, Oregon, to revitalize their grandfather’s farm, it seems a straightforward decision. Until they meet their neighborhood cowboys…
Sweet-natured Teddy has never met a man worth taking a risk on, until now. Tomboy Joey has more affinity with farm equipment than men, until a brooding cowboy changes her mind. Prickly baker Georgie can’t resist the temptation of the most forbidden cowboy of all, and sparks fly between ceramicist Elliot and the grumpy single-dad rancher next door.
The sisters’ feelings are anything but simple, but with the love and support of each other, they discover that a cowboy might be the sweetest thing of all about coming home.

My Review:

The best thing that Mickey Hathaway ever did for his four daughters was to leave before any of them were ever born – although some of their mothers would disagree. And not that his absence from their lives didn’t leave a “Dad” sized hole in all of their hearts. But that’s a hole that Mickey wasn’t capable of filling – whether he was around or not.

Teddy, Joey, Georgie and Elliott, in spite of being raised all over the country by four different women, share more than their gender-obscuring names, their violet eyes and their sperm donor. They are also all the same age, 25, as their deadbeat dad impregnated all of their mothers the same year.

(There’s a story there I wish we knew a bit more of, but it’s a humdinger all the same.)

They share a heart, a yearning to make a home together, and a curmudgeonly grandfather in tiny Jasper Creek, Oregon who has just had a heart attack but claims not to want their assistance or their presence. But grumpy is Jack Hathaway’s love language, so he might just be lying.

Whether he is or not, his health scare gives his girls the impetus they need to pull up stakes from wherever they’ve been and gather at the place their hearts all call home. The place where they have always wanted to put down roots and build the life together, as sisters, that they never had growing up.

Thus Four Sisters Farm is born. The four of them, pitching together with their creative skills and boundless love to fix the old ranch house that Jack has refused to live in for over a decade, work the land that has become a bit much for the old man, and build a self-sustaining set of businesses that will keep the farm afloat and in the hands of the Hathaway family even as it brings people and money to their little town.

Along the way, each of the sisters finds their own way to a Happy Ever After that none of them ever dreamed of when their journeys began.

Escape Rating A-: The stories in Sweet Home Cowboy are all stories of love and loss. The losses come first. It’s not just that “Dad” shaped hole in all of the girls’ hearts, it’s also the messages and the messes that each inherited from the mothers – the women that Mickey Hathaway left behind.

But it’s not just the sisters. The men that get swept into their lives – or sucked into the vortex they create – have also been through emotional wringers. The individual love stories in this four-leaf clover of a book are all about finding the person who makes you stronger in your broken places.

That his girls have come home to build their futures also helps to heal Grandpa Jack, which turns out to be the icing on this very sweet and lovely cake.

My favorite story of the four was Joey’s, written by Maisey Yates, who was is the organizer for this  Jasper Creek series. Joey was the hard-nosed, practical, fix-it, “tomboy” of the sisters. She’s kind of a blunt object, and that object is usually a hammer – whether figuratively or literally. She the one who learned to stand alone and be self-sufficient at all costs, lest she be thought weak OR be let down by relying on someone who can’t be relied upon. Learning to let go enough to let someone else in is hard, but watching Joey finally figure that out was lovely. And, just as in so many of the author’s previous works, and the reason why I picked this book up in the first place, Joey’s perspective and her issues with the cowboy she falls in love with feel real and do not require a misunderstandammit to reach that HEA.

I also enjoyed Teddy’s and Elliot’s stories, although they were different in tone to Joey’s, because they were different people and occupy different places in the kaleidoscope of the Hathaway sisters. I have to say that Georgie’s story didn’t quite work for me as well as the others did.

When I started Sweet Home Cowboy I had no idea that this was book three in a series, although that didn’t impact my reading and I didn’t feel like I needed to know what happened in the earlier books in order to get stuck right into this one. All the books in the series are written by the same group of friends that wrote Sweet Home Cowboy, and are about groups of four women returning to Jasper Creek, which is near both Copper Ridge and Gold Valley, the sites of Maisey Yates’ other long-running cowboy romance series(es). So far, Jasper Creek has featured four cousins (A Cowboy for All Seasons), four friends (A Good Old-Fashioned Cowboy), and now four half-sisters. Sweet Home Cowboy turned out to be a delicious treat of a read, so now I want to go back and see what else has happened!

Review: A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah WeatherspoonA Cowboy to Remember (Cowboys of California #1) by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Cowboys of California #1
Pages: 357
Published by Dafina Books on February 25, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

An Oprah Magazine Best Romance Novel of 2020
In this brand-new series from award-winning author Rebekah Weatherspoon, a charming cowboy and his sleeping beauty find their modern-day happily ever after . . .
With a headline spot on a hit morning show and truly mouth-watering culinary skills, chef Evie Buchanan is perched on the edge of stardom. But at an industry party, a fall lands Evie in the hospital—with no memory of who she is. Scrambling to help, Evie’s assistant contacts the only “family” Evie has left, close friends who run the luxury dude ranch in California where Evie grew up. Evie has no recollection of them—until former rodeo champion Zach Pleasant walks into her hospital room, and she realizes his handsome face has been haunting her dreams . . .
Zach hasn’t seen Evie in years—not since their families conducted a campaign to make sure their childhood friendship never turned into anything more. When the young cowboy refused to admit the feelings between them were real, Evie left California, making it clear she never wanted to see Zach again. Now he refuses to make the same mistake twice. Starting fresh is a risk when they have a history she can’t recall, but Zach can’t bear to let go of her now. Can he awaken the sleeping beauty inside her who might still love him?

My Review:

To open this happy week, I have the first of several books that are supposed to have happy endings. This one certainly did!

But it doesn’t have a happy beginning. At all. It’s going to take a lot of changes for celebrity chef Evie Buchanan to reach her happy place. Changes in attitude and changes in latitude.

I also just realized that this is a bit of a holiday romance. It’s not that the holidays turn out to be a big deal in this one, and certainly no one gets snowbound, but the holidays are occurring in the background as the story goes in in the foreground.

Let me explain…

The story here is a second chance at love romance with one hell of a twist. Amnesia stories are usually fodder for daytime soap operas, but after an “accident” at a holiday party, Evie Buchanan is living one. The amnesia story, that is, although possibly the soap opera as well.

She “fell” down the stairs, hit her head – badly – and can’t remember a damn thing about anything at all. Her roommate, her personal assistant and her agent all gather round, but can’t help her regain her memories – if she’ll get them back, all or even at all.

Evie’s been pretty close-mouthed about the details of her life before they all met her. All they know is that she’s an only child, her parents and other relatives are deceased, and she seems to have no life outside her work as a celebrity chef and star of The Dish, her daytime cooking show.

Evie doesn’t recognize them, and they don’t know any details of her previous life. Except for the name of her “only in case of deadly emergency” contact, Jesse Pleasant. Whatever their relationship might be or have been. His tangential presence in Evie’s contact list if seemingly not her actual life is all they have to go on.

And that’s where the second chance at love story comes into this story. Not with Jesse. Jesse is the big brother that Evie doesn’t otherwise have. Jesse’s brother, very much on the other hand, was the one that broke Evie’s young heart and sent her on her quest for fame, fortune and a lot of hard work as a chef.

The Pleasant family, with their exclusive “dude ranch”, hotel, spa and wedding venue in California, are the temporary answer to all of Evie’s problems. She can go back to where she grew up, be taken care of by the family who nearly adopted her, and stay out of New York City while her friends at home take a stab at figuring out whether Evie was just unlucky or the victim of something more sinister.

But as dangerous as NYC might be for a woman with a career to protect but no idea who she is or used to be, the risk to Evie’s unprotected heart is even greater in California, spending time with a man who has invaded her dreams like no one ever has. Zach Pleasant is either the key to bringing back Evie’s memory – or the reason she had so much to forget.

Escape Rating B+: I started this book because I was still looking for a happy ending. Not that Friday’s book didn’t admirably fill that bill – rather it did it so well that I wanted a little bit more.

So I turned, technically I returned, to A Cowboy to Remember – and just as it is for Evie and Zach, the second chance at romance was the winner. Also my second time picking up the book and giving it a second chance was a winner.

I had started this once but put it down the first time. Probably because I was looking for happy and didn’t find it in the story’s opening. When we first meet Evie, she still has all of her memories and doesn’t seem to be happy about either her past or particularly her present.

Picking the story up in the aftermath of her “accident” was just what I needed. It turned out that her life-changing injury was, in a perverse way, exactly what Evie needed as well. Not remembering her life gave her the chance to start over and look at herself from the outside. Just as I didn’t enjoy reading her unhappiness in the beginning, she didn’t like what she saw as she looked in the mirror at her old self.

There are several things going on in this story, and they all work together to bring that happy ever after home, not just for the holidays, but for always.

First, there’s that whole amnesia thing. It’s been the fodder for so many soap opera melodramas that it’s difficult to do it for real – or even for something real-ish rather than over-the-top. But in this story it lasts just long enough to not fall into anything stupid or silly and it does work to give Evie a once-in-a-lifetime chance to re-evaluate her life, the dreams she thought she had, and the dreams she believed she’d lost long ago.

The way that her relationship with Zach comes back to life turned out to be bittersweet rather than just sweet – and that feels like the way it should have been. The first time around, they were both young, they both screwed up, and neither of them ever got past those events or each other.

This is a do-over. Evie knows that they almost had it all the last time around, but screwed things up instead. But she doesn’t remember the details of what happened, so she isn’t still replaying in her head all the awful things they said to each other. Still, she hasn’t let them go so much as they’ve temporarily let her go. Zach remembers everything, is worried that someday there will be one hell of a reckoning, but can’t resist attempting to build the relationship they should have had long ago.

But they can’t have anything real until they catch up to each other, and the wariness of waiting for that other shoe to drop, the bitterness when it does and the difficulty of working through the past and the present provides the romantic tension in the story and gives it a surprisingly realistic chop of near-finality, making their eventual HEA hard earned and hard won.

A big part of the charm of this story was the way that Jesse and Zach’s family scooped Evie up and brought her back home to the place she’d grown up and the family that helped raise her. The relationships among the Pleasant family were beyond pleasant, and their re-adoption of Evie was heartwarming, particularly the re-kindling of the motherly/grandmotherly relationship between Jesse and Zach’s grandmother Leona and Evie. A relationship that Evie needed quite frankly even more than she needed the romance – and she needed that pretty damn bad.

It’s a good thing that Jesse and Zach’s family is so much more than merely “Pleasant” as the series looks like it follows the Pleasant sons. The next book in the series, If the Boot Fits, features Jesse and Zach’s youngest brother Sam, the one who followed Miss Leona into the acting business. I’m looking forward to reading it as it’s been praised to the skies everywhere, but the one I’m really hoping for is Jesse’s book. He’s kind of a quiet giant and it’s going to be fun to see him fall!

Review: The Hero of Hope Springs by Maisey Yates

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Hero of Hope Springs by Maisey YatesThe Hero of Hope Springs (Gold Valley, #10) by Maisey Yates
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Gold Valley #10
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on July 28, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Will Gold Valley’s most honorable cowboy finally claim the woman he’s always wanted?
For as long as brooding cowboy Ryder Daniels has known Sammy Marshall, she has been his sunshine. Her free spirit and bright smile saved him after the devastating loss of his parents and gave him the strength to care for his orphaned family. Only Ryder knows how vulnerable Sammy is, so he’s kept his attraction for his best friend under wraps for years. But what Sammy’s asking for now might be a step too far…
Something has been missing from Sammy’s life, and she thinks she knows what it is. Deciding she wants a baby is easy; realizing she wants her best friend to be the father is…complicated. Especially when a new heat between them sparks to life! When Sammy discovers she’s pregnant, Ryder makes it clear he wants it all. But having suffered the fallout of her parents’ disastrous relationship, Sammy is wary of letting Ryder too close. This cowboy will have to prove he’s proposing out of more than just honor…

My Review:

There’s a big part of me that wants to call this a “friends to lovers” romance. And that’s kind of true. As the story opens – actually, as the entire Gold Valley series opens, Ryder Daniels and Sammy Marshall have been friends, but never lovers. Not for the 17 years that they’ve known each other. And not that Ryder, at least, hasn’t had thoughts in that direction.

Thoughts that he has ruthlessly if not completely suppressed, every time they’ve, well, come up.

That’s something Ryder has had lots of practice with. By that I mean suppressing any thoughts he doesn’t think he can afford to let fester inside his skull – and that he can’t let out of his mouth, either.

But Sammy and Ryder are more than just friends. They’re best friends. They are deep inside each other’s lives, and occupy a whole lot of space inside each other’s hearts. So it feels more like this is a story about two people finally acknowledging a relationship that’s been there all along.

There are, however, a few problems with changing what they are to each other. As it turns out, more than a few. Lots and bunches.

The biggest one being that any attempt to change what they are to each other has the strong possibility of wrecking everything that they are to each other. A risk that neither of them is willing to take.

Until there’s no choice at all.

Escape Rating B-: This is a mixed feelings review in multiple directions. So let’s get right to it.

One of the reasons that I love this author is that she creates tension in romantic situations that feels REAL. The problems between Ryder and Sammy, and there are lots of them, feel organic to their lives and aren’t silly misunderstandammits that could be resolved with a single conversation.

The problem for the reader, or at least this reader, is that a huge chunk of their mutual problem, as much as they are definitely a case of opposites attracting, is that for entirely different reasons both of these people live a lot of their lives inside their own heads.

Ryder’s stuck inside his head because his parents died when he was 18 and about to go off to college on a football scholarship. He had big plans far away from the family ranch. But Ryder was the oldest of several children, and the only way for them all to stay together and keep the ranch was for Ryder to give up his dreams and become a surrogate father to his siblings and his cousins who also lived with them.

So Ryder’s always had LOTS of thoughts about what might have been, what he wished was, and just getting through being a parent when he wasn’t quite done with being a child himself.

Sammy lives inside her own head because it was the only place she could be free. She learned to distance herself emotionally when she couldn’t do it physically while her angry and violent father was taking out all of his disappointments on Sammy – with his fists. While her mother looked on. She left her parents and moved into a tiny camper on the grounds of Ryder’s ranch when she was 16 and he was 18, because he made her feel safe.

He still does.

While the reasons that both Ryder and Sammy live inside their own heads a lot – and with a lot of internal angst – feels like an entirely real response to the situations in their lives. It makes for hard reading. Because they also have their heads inside their own asses a lot, unable to get out of their own ways.

So this is a story where it reads like there’s more internal dialog than external dialog – or action. And that’s right for these characters but drove this reader a bit bananas. Your reading mileage may definitely vary.

As I said, I finished this book with mixed feelings. While there was more internal angst than worked for me in a romance, the reason for that angst felt real and true to life. I liked these characters and wanted them to achieve their HEA, but admit to being kind of surprised that they actually managed to do it! But I do enjoy the Gold Valley series so I’m looking forward to seeing Ryder and Sammy again as secondary characters in later books. Especially as it looks like some of Ryder’s siblings are up next!

Review: A Tall Dark Cowboy Christmas by Maisey Yates + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: A Tall Dark Cowboy Christmas by Maisey Yates + GiveawayA Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas (Gold Valley, #4) by Maisey Yates
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Gold Valley #4
Pages: 496
Published by Hqn on September 25, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

It’s Christmas in Gold Valley, and this wounded widower is about to get another shot at love…

Grant Dodge didn’t expect to find a woman sleeping in an abandoned cabin on his family ranch. Or to find her so intriguing. Unlike every other woman in town, McKenna Tate doesn’t know Grant’s a widower. There’s no pity in the looks she gives him. McKenna wants him, and Grant has forgotten what it’s like to feel like a man. A no-strings fling for Christmas might be the kind of holiday cheer Grant needs…

With only a suitcase to her name, McKenna came to Gold Valley to confront her birth father. She didn’t plan to work at the Dodge ranch or fall for the gorgeous cowboy who keeps his heart roped off. But there’s no denying the way their broken pieces fit together. Hope brought her to Gold Valley—but will it be the gift that could finally heal Grant, and McKenna’s own wounded heart?

Also includes a bonus Gold Valley novella, Snowed in with the Cowboy!

My Review:

It’s hard to believe that anyone would actually WANT to win a gold medal in the “Life Sucks” Marathon, but when Grant Dodge and McKenna Tate meet they are both serious contenders for that “grand” prize.

Possibly it’s a grand prize in the joke sense that first prize is one week in Hell and second prize is two weeks – although the way they both have been chasing this particular goal, that might actually be the other way around.

We’ve met Grant Dodge in the previous books in the Gold Valley series as his brothers have discovered their own happy ever afters. But Grant is a special case. He already found his happy, and knew perfectly well at the time that there was no “ever after” attached. Grant is semi-famous for having married his high school sweetheart knowing that she had terminal cancer, and caring for her for the eight years she managed to survive.

But he’s also been a widower for eight years, and is more than tired of all the pitying looks he gets from everyone in town and everyone he meets. His tragedy was so touching that it became fodder for one of the morning quasi-news shows, so no one ever lets him forget.

He’s wrapped his misery around him like a well-worn but scratchy blanket and doesn’t let anyone get close – not even his family – even though they are all working on the ranch together.

While Grant should be the first place finisher in that misery marathon, McKenna Tate is still in the running. He finds McKenna camped out in one of the ranch’s few remaining dilapidated (unheated and uninsulated) remote cabins. In December. In Oregon.

He claims he doesn’t want to be bothered, but he still takes her into the ranch house, where his brother and sister-in-law promptly offer McKenna a job and a cabin. She doesn’t want to take the charity, but she NEEDS it. She’s broke and homeless and out of options.

And she needs to be in Gold Valley. Her mother gave up her parental rights back when McKenna was only two, so she was raised in, or survived, foster care. Now she’s 24 and has come to Gold Valley to discover if the man listed on her birth certificate as her father is willing to give her a hand up.

She’s afraid to acknowledge, even to herself, that what she really wants is to belong. To someone. To be part of something. To finally have a place.

But while she tries to figure out how to approach her possible father, who turns out to be “rodeo royalty”, she becomes part of the mixed family of birth and choice that centers around the Get Out of Dodge Ranch.

And just maybe, she and Grant might manage to stop racing towards that first place in the misery marathon and reach for each other instead.

Escape Rating B+: In my review of Good Time Cowboy I called Maisey Yates the cowgirl queen of angsty western romance. The story in A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas certainly adds more sparkle to that crown.

Both Grant and McKenna begin the story in a serious bad way. But the bad way they’ve found themselves in, and the equally bad ways that they feel about it, feel like exactly the way a person would feel under their individual circumstances. It’s not manufactured angst or self-inflicted angst. They’ve had terrible things happen to them and they feel terrible because of those things.

Grant, in particular, has been living so much on the periphery of life at the ranch that it is more than possibly to read this book without having read the other books in the series first – not that they aren’t terrific reads. But Grant has done his best to not let other people in, to the point where he only plays a very minor role in his brothers’ lives – and is only willing to let them a tiny way into his.

McKenna has certainly had a lifetime of hard knocks that led her to Gold Valley. But she also has one attribute that draws Grant in like a magnet – she doesn’t know anything about his history. She doesn’t pity him or feel sorry for him. And she doesn’t want either of those things from him. She just thinks he’s hot. And she gets him hot and bothered in a way that he’s never allowed himself to feel.

The begin what becomes their relationship by finally giving into their amazing chemistry. They both think that’s all they have. But as much as Grant tries to stick to a rule of “no talking”, they can’t. McKenna can’t stop herself from talking under any circumstances, and Grant has spent so many years locked inside his own head that once he opens up at all he can’t make himself stop.

There is so much heartbreak in this story. Both Grant and McKenna begin the story as very broken people, and it’s tough reading their emotional turmoil. Watching them slowly heal each other is lovely, especially with their acknowledgement that it’s the hurts that they’ve each suffered that has made them the people they need to be for each other.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I’m giving away a copy of Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas to one lucky US/CAN commenter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Good Time Cowboy by Maisey Yates

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Good Time Cowboy by Maisey YatesGood Time Cowboy (Gold Valley, #3) by Maisey Yates
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Gold Valley #3
Pages: 474
Published by Hqn on August 21, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In Gold Valley, Oregon, forbidden desire just might turn into the love of a lifetime…

When Lindy Parker lost her cheating husband, she gained a vineyard. She’ll do anything for Grassroots Winery, including teaming up with the hottest devil she knows, rancher Wyatt Dodge. Wyatt is her ex’s friend and has an ego as big as the bulls he rides. But in spite of that, disciplined Lindy has always wanted him…

Lightning struck Wyatt Dodge the first time he saw Lindy Parker. But there were two problems with that: she was married to his friend, and Wyatt doesn’t do strings. But now Lindy is free, and the two of them can finally explore the heat that’s burned between them for so long. But can Lindy make this good time cowboy decide on forever?

My Review:

Maisey Yates is the cowgirl queen of the angsty western romance. What I love about her books is that the difficulties that get in the way of the happy ever afters between her characters always feel real and never contrived. There are no misunderstandammits, just interesting people with too much baggage who get in the way of their own happiness by being human but not by being stupid.

That’s been the story through the Gold Valley series and through the series it spun off from, Copper Ridge. The two small towns are neighbors in Oregon. Their fates are tied, and so are the people who live there. The individual books in each series do stand alone, but it is fun to read them all and get to know the entire gang.

The Gold Valley series has been featuring the Dodge family as they get their once-and-future destination ranch back into shape for a new generation of both Dodges and tourists. In this third book in the series, we finally get around to oldest brother Wyatt Dodge. I say finally because Wyatt is the prime mover and shaker behind this resurrection of the family ranch, so the story so far has circled around him even though he hasn’t been the featured player until now.

There’s angst in this romance on both sides of the equation. Wyatt is keeping a big secret from his sister and brothers. They are all (except local vet Bennett Dodge, see Untamed Cowboy) throwing not just their money but also their time, energy and hearts into getting Get Out of Dodge Ranch back into shape. They all think Wyatt owns the ranch, but he doesn’t. Their dad still owns the ranch, and if the ranch doesn’t succeed immediately after its grand re-opening, dad is going to sell it out from under all of them.

Wyatt is sure that dear old dad is punishing him for his long past sins, not that there weren’t plenty of them. But Wyatt is all in, he can’t resist a challenge and he isn’t willing to let his sister and his brothers down – no matter how willing he might be to tell their father to go to hell and not bother with the handcart.

Wyatt is so far in that he’s willing to partner with the one woman in town who has proven completely resistant to his charms. Lindy Parker is the one woman he has never managed to get out of his head, even if, or perhaps especially because, he’s never managed to get her into his bed.

Lindy, the current owner of Grassroots Winery, wants to make the winery a success to spite her ex-husband and ex-inlaws. She got the winery in her divorce from her cheating ex. As much as she doesn’t want to work with Wyatt – because he drives her crazy for reasons she can’t articulate even to herself, having the winery partner with the ranch makes good business sense even if it makes lousy personal sense.

Lindy’s been divorced for two years, which is just long enough for her to be able to start getting a much clearer picture in her own mind of the truth about not just her marriage but about her part of what went wrong. And about the twists and turns in her life that have brought her to the place she is now.

And that if she wants her own happy ever after, with or without any man in general or surprisingly Wyatt Dodge in particular, she needs to drop her own baggage, get her head out of her own ass and finally get out of her own way.

Even if Wyatt isn’t ready to get out of his.

Escape Rating B+: Unlike many of the previous books in this series (and Copper Ridge) this doesn’t feel like it really follows any of the familiar tropes. Wyatt and Lindy initially are far from friends. At the same time, they are not enemies, or even frenemies. While it becomes clear that they have both always been way more aware of each other than either of them was willing to let on, the relationship they actually have had doesn’t fit into any neat little boxes.

What it does remind me of is the French phrase that is usually translated as “love at first sight”. But love at first sight is not what they have. What happened to them at the very beginning, back when Lindy was still married to her cheating ex and Wyatt was still a champion bull rider on the rodeo circuit, feels more like the literal translation of that French phrase. Their first meeting was a “coup de foudre” or thunderbolt, that left scorched earth in its wake. And it’s the sudden intensity of that first meeting that neither of them has ever gotten past – no matter how much time they’ve both spent paddling that famous river, De Nial.

Their business partnership has forced Wyatt and Lindy into each other’s proximity on an uncomfortably frequent basis – and that original thunderbolt still has plenty of sparks left in it. There’s a big  problem, with sticking your finger in a light socket over and over – electricity hurts.

Both Wyatt and Lindy have become experts at keeping other people away from their true, core selves, and are very good and not letting themselves need other people, because both of their foundational experiences, although very different in their particulars, made them learn back when they were children that they had no one to rely on but themselves. Other people always let them down.

That’s a hard lesson for a child to learn, and it leaves scars that affect adult relationships. Wyatt feels like he has to shoulder the entire burden of their father’s demands alone, that he can’t let his siblings know their futures are riding on the grand opening.

Lindy feels like she can’t ever let her uber-calm, ultra professional ice princess ever falter, because she’s certain that people will judge her for upbringing and her choices. And while she’s right, they will judge, she needs to learn that it doesn’t have to matter. Not being her authentic self is her part of what broke her marriage, and her inability to be her real self keeps her from relationships, including one with her brother.

And both of them have things they need to forgive, both to forgive themselves, and to forgive others. Those are hard lessons to learn, and painful ones. But ultimately freeing.

Also totally real. And that’s what makes Maisey Yates’ angsty romances so terrific to read! Speaking of angst, the next book in the Gold Valley series is going to be chock-full of it. I can’t wait to read Grant Dodge’s story in A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas this fall.

 

Maisey Yates’ GOOD TIME COWBOY – Review & Excerpt Tour Schedule:

August 22nd

Always a happy ever after – Review

I Love HEA Romance Book Blog – Review

Melena’s Reviews – Review & Excerpt

August 23rd

Inside the mind of an avid reader – Review

Moonlight Rendezvous – Review & Excerpt

Sascha Darlington’s Microcosm Explored – Review & Excerpt

We Do What We Want Book Reviews & More – Review & Excerpt

August 24th

Lover of Big Books Cannot Lie – Review & Excerpt

Southern Vixens Book Obsessions – Review

TBR Book Blog – Review & Excerpt

August 25th

Ginreads – Review

Meme Chanell Book Corner – Review & Excerpt

Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews – Review

August 26th

Jax’s Book Magic – Excerpt

Kari’s Book Reviews and Revelations – Review & Excerpt

Renee Entress’s Blog – Review & Excerpt

August 27th

All Things Dark & Dirty – Excerpt

Reading Reality – Review

Sweet Red Reads – Review & Excerpt

August 28th

Adventures in Writing – Excerpt

Devilishly Delicious Book Reviews – Excerpt

Literary Misfit – Review & Excerpt

OMGReads – Review & Excerpt

August 29th

Aaly and The Books – Review & Excerpt

Booknerdingout – Review

Jen’s Reading Obsession – Excerpt

Read more sleep less – Review & Excerpt

August 30th

books are love – Review & Excerpt

It’s All About the Romance – Excerpt

Naturally Nerdy Books – Excerpt

Tfaulcbookreviews – Excerpt

August 31st

Reading Between the Wines Book Club – Excerpt

Vivi’s Messy Kitchen – Review

What Is That Book About – Excerpt

What’s Beyond Forks? – Review & Excerpt

Review: Christmastime Cowboy by Maisey Yates + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Christmastime Cowboy by Maisey Yates + GiveawayChristmastime Cowboy (Copper Ridge, #10) by Maisey Yates
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Copper Ridge #10
Pages: 384
Published by Harlequin Books on October 24th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

It's Christmas in Copper Ridge, and love is waiting to be unwrapped…

Falling for a bad boy once is forgivable. Twice would just be foolish. When Sabrina Leighton first offered her teenage innocence to gorgeous, tattooed Liam Donnelly, he humiliated her, then left town. The hurt still lingers. But so does that crazy spark. And if they have to work together to set up her family winery's new tasting room by Christmas, why not work him out of her system with a sizzling affair?

Thirteen years ago, Liam's boss at the winery offered him a bribe—leave his teenage daughter alone and get a full ride at college. Convinced he wasn't good enough for Sabrina, Liam took it. Now he's back, as wealthy as sin and with a heart as cold as the Oregon snow. Or so he keeps telling himself. Because the girl he vowed to stay away from has become the only woman he needs, and this Christmas could be just the beginning of a lifetime together…

My Review:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, particularly in Copper Ridge, Oregon.

Falling for a bad boy once is not merely forgivable, but probably a rite of passage to adulthood. We all do it at least once, and usually learn that the wild ride isn’t worth the inevitable fall. Falling for one twice is a pattern. Falling for the same bad boy twice is usually well beyond foolish.

But not for Sabrina Leighton. In this second-chance-at-love romance, there are a whole ton of, let’s call them mitigating circumstances.

The first time she fell for Liam Donnelly, she was all of 17 and he was 20. There was a certain amount of young and stupid involved on both of their parts. And the fact is that while the emotions may have been very, very real, nothing actually happened outside of those emotions.

Thirteen years ago, the one real thing that they had was friendship – a friendship that Liam broke, along with Sabrina’s heart, when he left. Not without a word, but with a whole lot of words that have continued to haunt Sabrina all these years.

And most of those words weren’t even true. But the scars they left still hurt.

Now that Liam is back in Copper Ridge, as part of the Donnelly brothers return to town in the wake of their grandfather’s death (see Slow Burn Cowboy, Down Home Cowboy and Wild Ride Cowboy for the full story) Liam and Sabrina keep running into each other, whether Sabrina wants to or not. (You don’t have to read the entire Copper Ridge series for the Donnellys’ piece of it to make sense, but it probably helps to read this quartet)

Copper Ridge is a very small town.

That Sabrina and Liam have unfinished business is pretty obvious to pretty much everyone, even if not everyone knows all the gory details. So whether Sabrina’s boss (and ex-sister-in-law) Lindy sets Sabrina up to deal with her unfinished business, or whether that’s just a happy side-effect, Sabrina is stuck. It’s part of her job to work with Liam on setting up a tasting room in town that will feature wines from her winery and cheeses from his ranch – as well as trap a whole bunch of tourist dollars and funnel customers back to both their businesses.

It’s a great business idea – even though at least initially it feels like a really lousy personal one.

But the chemistry that Liam denied all those years ago, and that Sabrina wasn’t quite mature enough to understand, hasn’t abated one little bit in the intervening years. The only way that they can manage to work together is not to get past what happened in the past, but to go through it.

To hash out all the stored resentments, explore all that bottled chemistry, and attempt to get each other out of their systems.

Like that’s ever going to happen.

Escape Rating B: Christmastime Cowboy feels like the cherry on top of the Donnelly Brothers subseries of the Copper Ridge ice cream sundae.

Also a real “cherry”, as Sabrina has never managed to find a man who even gets close to turning her crank after Liam ran off all those years ago.

I love the way that this author does angsty heroines, but Sabrina’s angst didn’t quite have the deep, tolling bell ring of angst of the heroines of Down Home Cowboy and Wild Ride Cowboy. Not that Sabrina hasn’t been hurt, but her wounds seem a bit more self-inflicted that either Alison’s or Clara’s.

While the story loses a bit of depth in comparison with the others because of that, one of the good parts of Christmastime Cowboy is the way that Sabrina finally manages to figure that out for herself, with only a couple of glancing blows from the clue-by-four administered by Liam.

Not that he doesn’t have plenty of his own baggage to deal with. But his baggage was dropped on him by his dysfunctional parents. Not that he hasn’t added plenty of extra pieces along the way all by himself. But he needs multiple hits from that clue-by-four, not just administered by Sabrina, but also by his brother Alex, before he finally figures out what’s been staring him in the face all along.

So the story, as it has often been in this series, is one where the hero is just certain that he hasn’t got a heart, or if it’s still in there it’s three sizes too small and that he’s just not worthy of giving it to anyone else. Ever.

The heroine, on that other hand, figures out how to dump enough of her own baggage to start a real life for herself, one that she’d much prefer to have with the hero, but that she knows she can manage to make on her own once her stomped on heart finally heals.

As formulas go, this one is always a winner.

Christmastime Cowboy is the final book in the Copper Ridge series. But the romance is just moving a bit down the road to neighboring Gold Valley in Smooth-Talking Cowboy. No one needs to smooth-talk this reader to jump back to this author’s next series. All of this author’s next series!

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am giving away a copy of Christmastime Cowboy to one lucky US/CAN commenter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: A Snow Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: A Snow Country Christmas by Linda Lael MillerA Snow Country Christmas (The Carsons of Mustang Creek, #4) by Linda Lael Miller
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: Carsons of Mustang Creek #4
Pages: 256
Published by Harlequin Books on September 26th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

It's a Christmas affair to remember as a Hollywood mogul discovers his inner cowboy—and the woman of his dreams—amid the rugged beauty of Wyoming.

Raine McCall would take snow-covered mountains over a star-studded premiere any day. But when hotshot movie executive Mick Branson arranges dinner on Christmas Eve to discuss a work opportunity, she's intrigued—by the offer and the man. She's a no-makeup, no-frills single mom, who's happy with her quiet life. Sharing chili cheeseburgers and sizzling kisses with Mick is sure heating up her holiday, but country girl and power player don't mix…

It's not just work that's brought Mick back to Mustang Creek. Since he first visited to oversee a documentary, free-spirited graphic designer Raine has been in his head. Her approach to life is as unconventional as her quirky holiday ornaments. Their attraction is undeniable—and so are their differences. Putting down roots in the Wild West wasn't in the script. But there are some Christmas gifts you can't walk away from, even when they turn your whole world upside down…

My Review:

A Snow Country Christmas is a candy cane of a Christmas romance, sweet with just the right touch of shivery, bracing coolness to make a delicious holiday treat.

It is also the perfect coda to the Carsons of Mustang Creek series. And even to the Brides of Bliss County series that it spun off from. It feels like all the story lines have been tied up with a big red Christmas-y bow, wrapped around this lovely story like a present.

The romance is of the “opposites attract” variety. Except it kind of isn’t. Raine McCall and Mick Branson are both certain that they have next to nothing in common. And on the surface they may both be right, but in the ways that it counts, they are totally and blissfully wrong.

Raine has been in the background of the entire Carsons of Mustang Creek series, and with good reason. She’s Slater (the hero of Once a Rancher) Carson’s ex. Not his ex-wife, just his ex. But also the very much present mother of his daughter Daisy, now approaching adolescence at breakneck speed. Raine knew that she and Slater, while they had a great time, didn’t suit for the long haul, so when she became pregnant and he made the expected offer of marriage, she turned him down.

They are, however, still very good friends and great co-parents for Daisy. It’s impossible not to believe that things worked out better this way for everyone, especially Daisy.

But Raine’s reaction to that expected proposal does sum up her life philosophy in a lot of ways. Raine is unconventional. Not just because she’s an artist, but because she’s found a place for herself and a way of living that work for her, and she’s learned not to pay attention to anyone who thinks she’s wrong for not doing any of the expected things.

Mick Branson does the expected things, and pretty much always has. Raine calls him “Mr. Boardroom” because he’s a high-powered wheeler-dealer in Hollywood and plenty of other places. Mick is also the man who finds the funding for Slater’s award-winning documentary films.

But somewhere along the way, his work with Slater as well as the many visits it’s required to Mustang Creek, have given Mick a new perspective – or put him in touch with a part of himself that he left behind. He’s fallen hard for Wyoming in general, and Mustang Creek in particular. He’s come to realize that at 40 or thereabouts, he’s tired of spending his life on the road or in the air, and wants to put down some roots and have a real life.

And he’s fallen even harder for Raine McCall, a woman whose life and roots are in Mustang Creek and who intends to keep them there – no matter how great a temptation Mick might provide. And as they explore the chemistry that has been simmering between them since their first meeting, they discover that under the surface, they have way more in common than anyone ever imagined.

And that it’s not just a mutual love of her famous grandfather’s novels.

Escape Rating A: I don’t give full A grades to many novellas. Even when I love them, there’s something about the novella format that usually leaves me itching for just a bit more. That’s not true with A Snow Country Christmas.

Because we’ve met these people before, and the setting is already established, the length here is just right. It also mirrors the length of time the story covers, over one long Christmas holiday, and it also seems to parallel the timing and course of Raine’s grandfather’s unfinished last novel.

That unfinished novel provides a touch of nostalgia as well as a way for the old man that Raine loved to give his haunting approval of her choice. And it gives Mick a vehicle in which he can explore his own suppressed creative side. The way that the unfinished story of the greenhorn and the unconventional woman of the West parallels Mick and Raine’s own romance was a marvelous touch.

For series fans, A Snow Country Christmas is the perfect ending to a delightful series. But, while I think this novella is complete in itself, it just doesn’t feel like the right place for beginners to start the series. For the best time in Mustang Creek, start back with The Marriage Pact, the first of the Brides of Bliss County series, to meet everyone and get to know this marvelous bunch of people.

I’ll miss these folks. But the romance between independent, unconventional Raine and thoughtful, considerate and willing-to-adapt Mick was the icing on what has been a really delicious cake.

Reviewer’s Note: The page count for this book on both Goodreads and Amazon is pretty far off. At 1700 kindle locations, A Snow Country Christmas is definitely a novella, and probably around 150 pages in length. A nice, quick read. With that number of kindle locations, the 384 pages listed on Goodreads is impossible without a ridiculous amount of white space. The 256 pages listed on Amazon probably refers to the large print edition. If you’re looking for a nice long read in this setting, go back to either The Marriage Pact or Once a Rancher, the first books in The Brides of Bliss County and The Carsons of Mustang Creek.

Review: Wild Ride Cowboy by Maisey Yates + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Wild Ride Cowboy by Maisey Yates + GiveawayWild Ride Cowboy (Copper Ridge, #9) by Maisey Yates
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Copper Ridge #9
Pages: 384
Published by Harlequin Books on August 29th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

He's come back to Copper Ridge, Oregon, to keep a promise—even if it means losing his heart…

Putting down roots in Copper Ridge was never Alex Donnelly's intention. But if there's one thing the ex-military man knows, it's that life rarely unfolds as expected. If it did, his best friend and brother-in-arms would still be alive. And Alex wouldn't have inherited a ranch or responsibility for his late comrade's sister—a woman who, despite her inexperience, can bring tough-as-iron Alex to his knees.

Clara Campbell didn't ask for a hero to ride in and fix her ranch and her life. All she wants is the one thing stubborn, honorable Alex is reluctant to give: a chance to explore their intense chemistry. But Clara has a few lessons to teach him, too…about trusting his heart and his instincts, and letting love take him on the wildest adventure of all.

My Review:

It’s a wild but very satisfying ride to the angst factory in the latest book in Maisey Yates’ Copper Ridge series.

And there’s no one whose very angsty heroines I like better than the women in this series. The best books in this series, at least for this reader, have been Last Chance Rebel, Down Home Cowboy, and the latest, Wild Ride Cowboy, and they all feature heroines who have more than the average amount of really awful baggage to carry.

There’s just something about the way that this author creates heroines that have really, truly suffered, but still get up and keep on going, that just works for me. What I love is that the angst and heartbreak that these women suffer is not llama drama fodder, nor has some man done them wrong. It’s that life has hit them upside the head by stuff way beyond their control, and that while they may be temporarily down, they are never out.

And that the entry of a good man, or a bad man trying to be good, into their lives does not magically solve all their problems – because their problems, like Clara’s in this particular story, are not ones that can really be solved. Only survived.

Not that Alex Donnelly’s belated re-introduction into Clara’s life doesn’t make things a bit easier for her, because it does. But the real story is the way that Alex’ insertion into Clara’s life and Clara’s ranch gives her the space she needs to get a grip on her own stuff. And that Clara’s advent into Alex’s life gives him the equal opportunity to finally deal with the heavy baggage that he’s been toting around his own life.

These are two people to whom a lot of shit has just plain happened, and neither of them have done the best job of shoveling it out of the way. In their own ways, they’ve spent more time wallowing in it than mucking it out.

Considering that Clara ends up with bison on her ranch, there’s going to be plenty of real manure to step around, without trucking in it from both of their pasts.

Clara has basically had a hard-knock life. She was 12 when her mother died, 16 when her dad went the same way. Now she’s 21, and her brother, her only remaining family, has been killed in action. Clara is all alone with her ranch and her grief, and not much else. There’s been too much death and not enough life in her life, and the accumulated mourning has finally beaten her to her knees. She may look like she’s coping on the outside, but she’s sunk in the morass and just can’t see her way out.

The ranch is all she has, but every corner of it is filled with memories of someone she lost. On her own, it’s going to take her a long time to come out of the dark, but there’s never a sense that she won’t get there one way or another. The problem is that in her grief she’s ignoring a whole lot of things that won’t let themselves be ignored for very long – like the bills she has to pay and the lawyers she needs to see. And it’s not even that she can’t pay the bills, it’s that she’s unwilling to open the envelopes and deal with the finality of her brother’s death.

Alex Donnelly has been ignoring his grief and his responsibilities for far too long. Clara’s brother was Alex’s best friend, and the man is dead because he stepped in front of a hail of bullets that was intended to kill them both. Now Alex is left to mourn, and to take care of the obligation that his friend left him with.

Alex is the executor of his friend’s estate, and the will has made him the “caretaker” of both the ranch and Clara for one year or until the ranch is self-supporting. Alex is in charge of the one thing that Clara believed was all her own. After all, she’s the only person who has been around to take care of it. And even though keeping the ranch has taken up her entire life, it is all she has.

But Alex has put off helping Clara so that he can get as settled in as he ever does at the Laughing Irish ranch that he has inherited along with his three brothers. The opening of that story is a big part of Slow Burn Cowboy. Now that Alex is as settled in as he ever gets, it’s time for him to take care of Clara.

So that he can move on again. Because that’s what he always does. He moves on before someone asks him to leave. Because they always do.

When Alex finds himself making a home with Clara, and wanting to make a real life with her, he doesn’t want to leave. But he knows it can’t last.

Or can it?

Escape Rating B+: Like the heroine in the marvelous Last Chance Rebel, Clara is a woman who has much too much real crap to deal with. She’s only 21, and everyone she’s ever loved has died. When we meet her she is still in the depths of her grief for her brother. She’s not despairing, she’s just beyond numb. It makes the earliest part of the book a hard read, because Clara is in such a dark place.

Alex becomes her light in the tunnel. But there’s an old joke about when you see a light in the tunnel, there’s a good chance that it’s an oncoming train. And that’s what Alex thinks of himself. His foundational experience is that he isn’t good enough for anyone to stay with, including, or perhaps especially, his own parents.

He’s certain that he’s not good enough for Clara, that he’s not worthy of her love or her trust. And he spends a whole lot of time being insulting about Clara’s age and agency, pretending that at 21 she’s not old enough to know her own mind and heart, and that at 31 he’s too old and too damaged for her.

Mostly, he’s just protecting himself. And Clara, rightfully, calls him on his bullshit. Because Alex is both stubborn and scared, there’s plenty of b.s. and she has to call him on it multiple times. It’s easy to wonder if he’s ever going to get the message, or whether she’s going to have to beat it into him with a clue-by-four.

The delivery of said clue-by-four in the hands of Alex’s equally dysfunctional brother Liam, makes for a satisfying ending to Wild Ride Cowboy, and sets things up nicely for Liam’s own story in Christmastime Cowboy. It looks like presents for everyone!

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Harlequin is offering one (1) lucky winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Down Home Cowboy by Maisey Yates + End of Summer Tour + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways> Guest Posts
Review: Down Home Cowboy by Maisey Yates + End of Summer Tour + GiveawayDown Home Cowboy (Copper Ridge, #8) by Maisey Yates
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Copper Ridge #8
Pages: 384
Published by Harlequin Books on June 27th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

This Texas cowboy has come home to Copper Ridge to put down roots…but will he risk his heart again?
Asked where he'd be at this point in life, Cain Donnelly would have said anywhere but Copper Ridge, Oregon, living with his estranged brothers. But since his wife abandoned them, both he and his daughter, Violet, are in need of a fresh start, so he's back to claim his share of the family ranch. Local baker Alison Davis is a delicious temptation, but she's also his daughter's mentor and new boss. That makes her off-limits…until she offers a no-strings deal that no red-blooded cowboy could resist.
Alison has worked tirelessly to rebuild her life, and she won't jeopardize her hard-won independence. Especially if it also complicates Cain's relationship with Violet. But with Cain offering a love she never thought was possible, Alison has to find the courage to let her past go…or watch her future ride away for good.

My Review:

Maisey Yates’ Copper Ridge series has been a bit of a mixed bag for me. I adored Last Chance Rebel, but let’s just say that I did not feel much love for Slow Burn Cowboy. On my other hand, my Guest Reviewer Amy clearly enjoyed Hold Me, Cowboy. So we were two out of three coming into Down Home Cowboy.

And we have another winner.

Neither Cain Donnelly nor Alison Davis are looking for a relationship. But they are both looking for sex. Four years is a long dry spell for anyone in their early-to-middle 30s, even coming out of their completely different but equally bad relationships.

Maybe not quite equally bad. Alison was abused by her ex-husband for eight years, and her four years post-divorce have been a journey of self-discovery and self-fulfillment. But her baggage is huge and painful, and she’s just reached the point where she is willing to dip her toe back into the waters of sex. But she is unwilling to cede an inch of her hard-won independence to any man for any reason. And it’s impossible to blame her.

Cain’s ex-wife left him four years ago, running off and leaving him with sole custody of their daughter Violet. Dealing with the fallout from that disaster, along with being a single father, has left Cain with little time, energy or inclination to get involved with anyone, until he meets Alison.

But they definitely start out on the same page. They both want sex, but neither of them is interested in the complication of a relationship. Things are already complicated enough – Alison is Violet’s boss at her bakery, and it seems like working for Alison is the first thing that Violet has even half enjoyed since Cain uprooted them from Texas and moved in with his half-brothers in the ranch they all inherited from their grandfather.

(The details of that particular SNAFU are in Slow Burn Cowboy. And while the romance in that book was a bit of a disappointment, the messy drama of the Donnelly boys making themselves into a functionally dysfunctional family was a load of fun. I’m happy to see more of them! Possibly not quite as happy as Alison is to see ALL of Cain, but that’s part of what makes Down Home Cowboy work.)

The problem that Cain and Alison have is that it is difficult to make love without feeling at least a little love (Which was also one of Finn’s issues in Slow Burn Cowboy. This may be a trend.) And no matter what fibs they told themselves about what they were expecting from their liaison, it’s pretty clear from the beginning that they are, quite definitely, making love and not just getting their ashes hauled. Not that they aren’t doing that, quite well, too.

But when Cain challenges Alison to admit that they both feel more for each other than they planned on, Alison lets her past fears ruin her present hopes. Unless she can finally drop the baggage that’s weighing her down for good.

Escape Rating B+: This one was fun. And it was way, way, way more fun than Slow Burn Cowboy, without quite rising to the level of angsty goodness that was Last Chance Rebel.

This is a story where everyone has baggage, and everyone needs to drop it. Or learn to carry it. Or both. And it’s a story where everyone is afraid, and with good reason.
Both Violet and Cain fear abandonment. His father abandoned him, his mother was an alcoholic, and her mother abandoned both her and Cain. Those fears are all real. Alison is afraid of losing herself again, the way she did in her abusive marriage. She’s not certain her new found strength and independence is strong enough to let her love someone without letting them take her over, even though she knows that her ex’s need to take her over and grind her down had way more to do with him than with her. That she let it happen haunts her to the point of preventing her from moving all the way forward, and we understand why.

Watching them all overcome the worst of what’s holding them back and learning to cope with the rest in a healthy and not destructive fashion is what makes this story work. At least, that’s what made the story work for this reader, and I hope for lots of others.

If this review, or any of the reviews, guest posts and spotlights in this End of Summer Blog Tour tickle your reading fancy, you can download a sampler of all the opening chapters from Harlequin.

The End of Summer – Guest Post by Maisey Yates

I love Summer. When it’s not burning hot (which is when I end up hiding in the AC) it takes me right back to being a kid. Our schedule is relaxed, the days are long, the evenings cool and blue, and the mornings…perfect for laying in bed just a little bit longer.

But days like that can all blur together, and then Summer can end up flying by before you know it.

I find that changes in scenery help a little bit with that. We live in Oregon, and it’s an amazing state with totally diverse landscapes that make for some amazing road trips. Or even just glorious back yard hangouts.

We’ve spent our share of time out on the lake paddle boarding this year, and hiking on the trails behind the historic town we live close to, making the most of what we have nearby.

In early July, we took our kids way up in the mountains and lay in the back of the pickup truck and looked at the stars. It makes a huge difference when you can escape the light pollution. We could see the Milky Way and (for the most part) the kids even got along.

Then we went on a big road trip to the eastern part of the state, where we got to enjoy the high desert.

We’re used to a lot of green in the state. I’ve lived in Oregon all my life, and I don’t think I had an adequate appreciation for just how unique the Eastern part of the state is. The red mountains and volcanic rock are a pretty sharp contrast to the evergreen mountains that surround our house.

From there we continued up to Portland, Oregon, which is our major city. (You might know it from the TV show Portlandia. I can’t dispute the accuracy of that show. At all.)

We got to enjoy the museum of science, and Oregon Zoo and some other more urban things that we don’t get a chance to take in very often seeing as we live very, very not urban.

So far this summer we haven’t had the chance to make it over to the coast, which is my other favorite Oregon locale. My husband and I honeymooned in Bandon, Oregon twelve years ago, and it has a special place in my heart. Which, if you’ve read my books your can probably tell, since Bandon served as major inspiration for my Copper Ridge series!

Getting out and enjoying Oregon is one of my favorite summer pastimes. And staying in writing love letters to Oregon in my Copper Ridge books is my favorite thing to do all year long.

I love to write books set everywhere, and I love to travel all over, but Oregon is my home, and that’s where my heart is — when it comes to life and fiction.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

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