Series: Gold Valley

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: Untamed Cowboy by Maisey Yates

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Untamed Cowboy by Maisey YatesUntamed Cowboy (Gold Valley, #2) by Maisey Yates
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance
Series: Gold Valley #2
Pages: 473
Published by HQN Books on June 19, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In Gold Valley, Oregon, love might be hiding in plain sight…

Some things are too perfect to mess with. Bennett Dodge’s relationship with Kaylee Capshaw is one of them. They work together at their veterinary clinic and have been best friends for years. When Bennett’s world is rocked by the appearance of a son he didn’t know he had, he needs Kaylee more than ever. And he doesn’t want anything else to change. But then Kaylee kisses him, and nothing will ever be the same…

Kaylee’s done her best to keep her feelings for the man she’s loved since high school hidden away, but one unguarded moment changes everything, and now there’s no more denying the chemistry that burns between them. But the explosion of desire changes all the rules, and what’s left could destroy their bond—or bring them to a love that’s deeper than she ever imagined…

My Review:

Untamed Cowboy combines a trope I really love with a trope I usually hate into a romance that just turned out to be the right book at the right time.

Bennett and Kaylee have been friends forever. Or at least since they were both 13, from the minute that Kaylee moved to Gold Valley. Even more miraculously, they stayed friends, through high school, college, veterinary school and into their current veterinary practice.

They’ve gone from friends to business partners, always being there for each other no matter what.

But Kaylee has a secret that she has kept from Bennett for the entire time they’ve known each other. She loves him. She really, really does. Not just as friends, not just as besties, not just as the person who gave her stability and family when she had none, but as the only man she’s ever loved. Or probably ever will.

She’s just spent a year in torment, watching as Bennett got engaged to Olivia Logan, and then watching it all fall apart in the previous book in the series, Smooth-Talking Cowboy. But Olivia is now pregnant and marrying someone else, and Bennett doesn’t seem to broken up about it.

Because he’s not. His heart isn’t remotely broken – it’s not even dented a bit. He’s just upset that his life plans have been thrown out of whack.

And that’s where the other trope comes in. Because Bennett also has a secret. Back in high school, his girlfriend got pregnant. He intended to give up his dream of vet school, marry her and settle down (and just plain settle) at his family’s ranch. But she told him she lost the baby, and he lived his dreams.

But she didn’t. Lose the baby, that is. That baby arrives on his doorstep, now a scared and scarred 15-year-old boy who has no place left to go. His ex is a drug addict and her parental rights have been terminated. Bennett Dodge is all that his son Dallas has left.

And Bennett is all in for that. The problem on that front is convincing Dallas that he has finally found not just one but a whole set of adults who won’t let him down. Not just Bennett, but also his brothers and sister. And especially Kaylee, who knows more about what Dallas is going through than she ever let on.

I don’t normally like the “secret baby” trope but it works this time, probably because Dallas’ mother is far out of the picture, and Bennett’s secret, as far as he knew, was that he’d almost become a father at 16 but fate intervened. Only to have it intervene again, and for Bennett to finally realize that life can’t be planned, and it can’t be controlled.

It can only be lived.

Escape Rating A-: In the end, this feels like a story where, like the quote says, “life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

Bennett and Kaylee, in their completely different ways, are both fairly firmly fixed on planning their lives, because both of them have seen what happens when people lose control, and just how much damage that loss of control leaves in its wake.

Bennett lost his mother when he was a little boy. She died unexpectedly of complications after the birth of his baby sister. As an unacknowledged and unintended consequence he’s spent his whole life trying to do two things, fix everything and everyone he can, and keep control over his own life so that he isn’t hurt by anyone again.

His almost-marriage to Olivia Taylor was part of that careful planning. The introduction of his son into his life is the opposite, it’s the result of one of the few times he lost control. But as much as he regrets that lack of control, he can’t regret Dallas, only the years that he lost with his son due to his ex-girlfriend’s lies.

Bennett has done his best to keep his relationship with Kaylee firmly under control in the friend-zone, because she is the one person he trusts and cares for outside of his own family. But Kaylee is an adult child of alcoholics, a syndrome which breeds its own needs for control.

Bennett is the one person who strips away her control. She can’t help what she feels. She can only control his knowledge of her feelings, because she fears that she doesn’t deserve anything more than his friendship, and that reaching for more will cost her the only stable relationship in her life.

They are both emotional messes, and in ways that both pull them apart and keep them together. They need each other, but are both afraid of committing too much and getting hurt and being betrayed again. While neither Bennett’s mother’s death nor Kaylee’s parents alcoholism are under their control, that doesn’t mitigate the enduring consequences inflicted on their child-selves and how they deal (or don’t) deal with those consequences as adults.

Dallas upsets all the balances. Bennett’s feelings for his son are out of his control, and those feelings make him realize that his control has left him half-living his own life. The difficulties that Bennett and Kaylee have in reaching for each other feel real and heartfelt and I loved the way that they earned their happy ever after.

Review: Smooth Talking Cowboy by Maisey Yates + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Smooth Talking Cowboy by Maisey Yates + GiveawaySmooth-Talking Cowboy (Gold Valley, #1) by Maisey Yates
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Gold Valley #1
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on February 20th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Welcome to Gold Valley, Oregon, where a rough-and-tumble rancher and the girl next door are about to learn that opposites attract

Olivia Logan has a plan: win back her ex by making him see what he’s missing. But first she needs to find a man who’s willing to play along. With his laid-back cowboy charm and knack for getting under her skin, Luke Hollister is an unlikely hero—but he wants her help convincing her father to sell him land, which means he needs her as much as she needs him.

Luke likes his life—and his women—uncomplicated. So why does good girl Olivia heat his blood like no one else? She’s always been off-limits, but the more time they spend as Gold Valley’s hottest new “couple,” the more real it’s starting to feel. Luke was supposed to help her win back another man…not keep her in his arms. But now that he has her there, he’s not sure he’ll ever let go.

My Review:

It’s not so much that Luke Hollister is a particularly smooth talker – it’s more like Olivia Logan is particularly susceptible to his brand of cowboy charm – even if she can’t admit it, not even to herself.

But then, Olivia has a long and sad history of not admitting what’s important to her to herself or to anyone else. She has become so invested in being a “good girl” for so many sad and bad reasons that falling for Luke’s charm is the furthest thing from her mind.

Until after it happens, and she’s forced to realize, at least in the privacy of her own mind, that he’s just what she’s been waiting for all along – even when she was pining away for someone else entirely.

This author has a knack for getting her heroine’s into really angsty situations, and Olivia Logan is no exception, even if some of her angst, or at least the layers on top, are mostly of her own making.

In the Copper Ridge series, which takes place just down the road from Gold Valley, Olivia Logan was one of the secondary characters. As her friends and co-workers met and fell in love with the men of their dreams, Olivia was absolutely certain that she had already found the man she was destined to spend the rest of her life with.

The fact that it was obvious to everyone that Olivia Logan and Bennett Dodge had absolutely zero chemistry didn’t seem to matter to Olivia. She had convinced herself that Bennett was the perfect man for her. And it turned out that Olivia’s father had convinced Bennett that Olivia was the right woman for him.

This is not the stuff of which dreams are made. Occasionally it IS the stuff of which nightmares are made.

After a year of extremely tepid dating, Olivia expected a ring. Bennett wasn’t ready. It’s dubious whether Bennett would ever be ready, but Olivia wasn’t ready to admit that. She broke up with Bennett in the hopes that her absence would make him realize just what he was missing.

Instead, Olivia discovered exactly what she was missing, in the person of Luke Hollister – a man who delighted in getting her just a little bit riled up every time they met. Sort of like the way that little boys tease the girls they like but don’t know what to do with yet.

Luke wasn’t interested in relationships, and Olivia wasn’t interested in anything but. But without Bennett to fill in the empty spaces, Olivia discovered that being a good girl was kind of a strait-jacket, and that Luke was the perfect person to help her out of it. And everything else she might possibly have on.

If she’s willing to take a risk on not being perfect, on getting hurt, and on saying (and doing) what’s really in her heart.

Escape Rating B+: As I said earlier, Olivia has been one of the secondary characters in Copper Ridge, and in the author’s Copper Ridge series. She has not been one of the more likeable characters, but up until now, we didn’t really know why.

What we do know is that she’s just a bit socially awkward, and not for any of the usual reasons. Olivia has been so invested in being the “good girl” that her parents expect her to be that she has done her best to live a completely disciplined life and remove any and all temptations to stray from the straight and narrow. And she’s pretty judgemental about anyone who does stray from that straight and narrow.

Olivia is a twin, but her twin sister is not in the picture. Vanessa didn’t just stray from the straight and narrow, she ran headlong away from it, into sex and booze and eventually drugs. As happens in so many families, the more that Vanessa turned toward the “dark side”, the more that Olivia felt obligated to become her opposite, the “good girl”. And now that Vanessa is who-knows-where doing who-knows-what, Olivia is kind of stuck in her role. Not only does the entire town expect it, but so do her smothering, overprotective parents who are desperate to hover over the child they still have in their lives.

Marrying Bennett Dodge was part of the life that Olivia was expected to have. It’s only once Bennett is out of her life that she’s able to look at what she really wants – even when she herself doesn’t want to see it.

Not that Luke is much more self-aware. Just as the loss of her twin is at the heart of so much of Olivia’s behavior, and so much of her internal conflict, Luke Hollister is also hiding a deep loss that he hasn’t been able to get past. It’s their traumas that finally bring them together, and nearly tear them apart.

The lesson at the end of the story is both sad and beautiful. You’ll see.

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