Tag: #westernromance

Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Heart Like a Cowboy by Delores Fossen

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for HEART LIKE A COWBOY (Cowboy Brothers in Arms Book #1) by Delores Fossen on this HTP Books Romance Blog Tour.

Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book, and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Summary

He’s Emerald Creek’s hottest cowboy—and the one man she shouldn’t want

On the surface, Egan Donnelly is hometown hero material—top gun, commanding an elite fighter training squadron and ranching royalty. Inside, he feels like a fraud, convinced he’s responsible for his best friend’s death. At least he won’t let himself succumb to the heat between him and Jack’s widow, Alana. Yet. Now that she’s making regular trips to his ranch to care for his dad, that vow is getting harder to keep.

Alana Davidson isn’t just grieving her husband’s loss, she’s feeling betrayed over his secret infidelity. Wanting Egan makes things even more complicated. As a nutritionist, she can help Egan’s dad recover from his health scare, but it’s not so easy to get her own heart back on track. Because despite shared guilt and family pressure, she’s falling fast, and Egan is right there with her…

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/139910665-heart-like-a-cowboy

Heart Like a Cowboy

Author: Delores Fossen

ISBN: 9781335009487

Publication Date: November 28, 2023

Publisher: Canary Street Press

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

HEART LIKE A COWBOY (Cowboy Brothers in Arms Book #1) by Delores Fossen is an emotional start to the new Cowboy Brothers in Arms series set in smalltown Emerald Creek, Texas. The Donnelly’s live on a generational ranch with all four siblings serving in the military on active duty. This story introduces the entire family and features the romance of the eldest brother, Lt. Col. Egan Donnelly.

Air Force Lt. Col. Egan Donnelly is both a hometown Top Gun hero and commander of an elite fighter training squadron and the eldest sibling in a ranching family. When his father has a massive heart attack, Egan takes a month’s leave to run the ranch and try to figure out how he will go forward. When his father returns home to recuperate, Egan comes face to face with the nutritionist working on his case. It is the sister of his ex-wife and the widow of his best friend, Jack, who he hoped to avoid. Egan has carried the guilt for Jack’s death from an IED when he was visiting him for three years.

Alana Davidson is the nutritionist helping Egan’s dad and while everyone still considers her Jack’s grieving widow, she is ready to move on from her grief. She had an argument with her husband right before he died overseas when she discovered he had cheated on their marriage. She is determined to tell Egan she feels just as responsible. Despite smalltown gossip and family interference Alan and Egan begin to discover they are ready to move on and stand together.

There are a lot of obstacles, twists, and surprises on the road to romance for Egan and Alana. I loved both fully developed characters because they communicated and did not play games. They also stood together when faced with smalltown gossip and the emotional adversity that Jack’s mother put them through. All the secondary characters added to the realism of the story and believable life situations. There are sexually explicit scenes in this romance, but they were not gratuitous. The introduction of the other siblings was entertaining, and I am looking forward to their stories in the future.

I recommend this first heartfelt book in the Cowboy Brothers in Arms series. Dolores Fossen is one of my favorite go-to cowboy romance authors and she never disappoints.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

That whole deal about bad news coming in threes? Well, it was a crock. Lieutenant Colonel Egan Don- nelly now had proof of it.

First, there’d been the unexpected visitor, AKA the messenger, who’d started the whole bad-news ball rolling. That’d teach him to open his frickin’ door before he’d even finished his frickin’ coffee.

Then, there was the so-called celebration that would stir up the worst of his past and serve it up to him on a silver platter. Or rather on a disposable paper plate, anyway.

Then, a letter from his ex, which he figured was never a good sign. Who the heck actually wanted to hear from their cheating ex? Not him, that was for sure.

Those were the three things—count them: one, two, three—that was supposed to have been the final tally of bad crap even if for only a day, but apparently the creator of that old saying had no credibility what- soever. Then again, Egan had known firsthand that bad news didn’t have limited quantities.

Or expiration dates.

Now he was faced with ironclad confirmation that 

those other three things were piddly-ass drops in the proverbial bucket compared to bad-news number four.

And now, everything in his world was crashing and burning.

Again.

Thirty Minutes Earlier

In the dream, Lieutenant Colonel Egan Donnelly saved his best friend’s life. In the dream, the explosion didn’t happen. It didn’t blast through the scorched, airless night. Didn’t tear apart the transport vehicle.

Didn’t leave blood on the bleached sand.

Didn’t kill.

In the dream, Egan was the hero that so many people proclaimed he was. He made just the right decisions to save everyone, including Jack. Especially Jack.

Egan didn’t fight tooth and nail to come out of this dream—unlike the ones that were basically a blow-by-blow account of what had actually happened that god-awful night nearly three years ago. Those dreams were pits of the darkest level of hell where everything spun and bashed, stomping him down deeper and deeper into the real nightmare. Those dreams he fought.

Had to.

Because Egan had learned the hard way if he let those dreams play out, then it was a damn hard struggle to come back from them. Heck, he was still trying to come back from them.

Despite wanting to linger in this particular dream 

where he got to play hero, it didn’t happen, thanks to his phone dinging with a text. He frowned, noticing that it was barely six in the morning. Texts at this hour usually were not good. Considering that all three of his siblings were on active duty, not good could be really bad.

He saw his father’s name on the screen, and the worry instantly tightened Egan’s gut. His dad had just turned sixty so while he wasn’t in the “one foot in the grave” stage, he wasn’t the proverbial spring chicken, either. Added to that, his dad still ran the day-to-day operation of Saddlebrook, the family’s ranch in Emerald Creek, Texas. The ranch that’d been in the Donnelly family for over a hundred years and had grown and grown and grown with each succeeding generation. All that growth required hours of upkeep and work.

Found this when I was going through some old photo albums, his dad had texted.

What the heck? That gut tightness eased up, some, when Egan saw it was a slightly off-center image taken in front of the main barn on the ranch. His dad had obviously used his phone to take a picture of the old photo. Emphasis on old.

It was a shot that his grandmother, Effie, had snapped thirty years ago on Egan’s eighth birthday. His brother, Cal, would have been six. His sister, Remi, a two-year-old toddler, and his other brother, Blue, was just four. Stairsteps, people called them, since they’d all been born just two years apart.

In the photo, his dad, looking lean, fit and young, 

was in the center, flanked by Egan and Remi on the right, and Cal and Blue on the left. Remi and Blue were both grinning big toothy grins. Cal and Egan weren’t. Probably because they’d been old enough to understand that life as they’d known it was over.

Their lives hadn’t exactly gone to hell in a handbasket, but this particular shot had been taken only a couple of weeks after their mother had died from cancer. A long agonizing death that had left their dad the widower of four young kids. Still, his dad was eking out a smile in the picture, and he’d managed to gather all four of them in his outstretched arms.

Bittersweet times.

That’s when their mom’s mom, Grammy Effie, had come to Saddlebrook for what was supposed to have been a couple of months, until his dad got his footing. Effie was still living on the ranch thirty years later and had obviously put down roots as deep as his father’s.

Egan was wondering what had prompted his dad to go digging through old family albums when his phone dinged again. It was another text from his dad, another photo. It was an image that Egan also knew well, and he mentally referred to it as the start of phase two of his life.

The first phase had been with a loving mother that sadly he now couldn’t even remember. That had ended with her death. Phase two had begun when his dad had gotten remarried four years later to a young fresh-faced Captain Audrey Granger, who’d then been stationed at the very base in San Antonio 

where Egan was now. It was an hour’s commute to the ranch that Audrey had diligently made.

For a while, anyway.

In this shot, his dad and new bride dressed in blue were in the center, and both were flashing giddy smiles. Ditto for Remi and Blue. Again, no smiles for Cal and Egan since they’d been ten and twelve respectively and were no doubt holding back on the glee to see how life with their stepmom would all play out.

It hadn’t played out especially well.

But then, it also hadn’t hit anywhere near the “hell in a handbasket” mark, either.

If there’d been a family photo taken just two years later, though, Audrey probably wouldn’t have been in it. By then, she’d been in Germany. Or maybe England. Instead of an hour commute, she’d come “home” to the ranch a couple of times a year. Then, as her career had blossomed, the visits had gotten further and further apart. These days, Brigadier General Audrey Donnelly only came home on Christmas. If that.

Egan sent his dad a thumbs-up emoji to let him know he’d seen the pictures, and he was considering an actual reply to ask if all was well, but his alarm went off. He got up, mentally going through his schedule for the day. As the commander of the Fighter Training Squadron at Randolph AFB, Texas, there’d be the usual paperwork, going over some stats for the pilots in training, and then in the afternoon, he’d get to do one of the things he loved most.

Fly.

Of course, it would be under the guise of a training mission in the T-38C Talon jet, not the F-16 that Egan used to pilot, but it would still give him that hit of adrenaline. Still give him the reminder of why he’d first joined the Navy and then had transferred to the Air Force so he could continue to stay in the cockpit.

Egan showered, put on his flight suit, read through his emails on his phone and was about halfway through his first cup of coffee when his doorbell rang. He had the same reaction to it as he had the earlier text. A punch of dread that something was wrong. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet and hardly the time for visitors. Especially since he lived in base housing and therefore wasn’t on the traditional beaten path for friends or family to just drop by.

Frowning, he went to the door. And Egan frowned some more when he looked through the peephole at the visitor on his porch. A woman with pulled back dark blond hair and vivid green eyes. At first glance, he thought it was his ex-wife, Colleen, someone he definitely didn’t want to see, but this was a slightly younger, taller version of the woman who’d left him for another man.

Alana Davidson, Colleen’s sister.

“Yes, I know it’s early,” Alana sighed and said loud enough for him to hear while she looked directly at the peephole. “Sorry about that.”

Wondering what the heck this was all about, he opened the door and got an immediate blast of heat. Texas in June started out hot as hell and got even hotter. Today was apparently no exception. He also 

got another immediate blast of concern because there was nothing about Alana’s expression that indicated this was a social visit.

Then again, Alana and he never had social visits.

Never.

Just too much old baggage, old wounds and old everything else between them. Ironic, since she’d been married to his best friend. Now, she was his dead best friend’s widow and bore that strong resemblance to his cheating ex-wife who’d left him just days before Jack’s death.

Egan was no doubt an unwelcome sight for her, too. He was the man who’d not only failed to keep her husband alive, but he was also the reason Jack had been in that transport vehicle in the first place.

So, yeah, old baggage galore.

“Sorry,” Alana repeated, looking up at him. Not looking at him for long, though. Like their avoidance of social visits, they didn’t do a lot of eye contact, either. “But I have an appointment at the base hospital in an hour, and I wanted to catch you before you went into work.”

“The hospital?” he automatically questioned.

She waved it off, clearly picking up on his concern that something might be medically wrong with her. “I’m consulting with a colleague on a chief master sergeant who’s being medically retired and moving to Emerald Creek. I’ll be working with the chief to come up with some lifestyle changes.”

Alana made that seem like her norm, and maybe it was. She was a dietitian, and because as Jack’s widow 

she still had a military ID card so she wouldn’t have had any trouble getting onto the base. Added to that, Emerald Creek was a haven for retirees and veterans since it was so close to three large military installations. There were almost as many combat boots as cowboy boots in Emerald Creek.

“How’d you know where I live?” he asked.

“I got your address from your grandmother.” She glanced over her shoulder at the street of houses. “I occasionally have consults here, but it’s the first time I’ve been to this part of the base.”

Yeah, his particular house wasn’t near the hospital, commissary or base exchange store where Alana would be more apt to go. Added to that, Jack had never been stationed here, which meant Alana had never lived here, either.

“Full disclosure,” she said the moment he shut the door. “You aren’t going to like any of what I have to say.”

Now it was Egan who sighed and braced himself for Alana to finally do something he’d expected her to do for three years. Scream and yell at him for allowing Jack to die. But there was no raised voice or obvious surge of anger. Instead, she took out a piece of paper from her sizeable handbag and thrust it at him.

“It’s a mock-up of a flyer that Jack’s mom intends to have printed up and sent to everyone in her known universe,” Alana explained.

At first glance, he saw that the edges of the flyer had little pictures of barbecue grills, fireworks, the 

American flag and military insignia. Egan intended to just scan it to get the gist of what it was about, but the scanning came to a stumbling slow crawl as he tried to take in what he was reading.

“Join us for a Life Celebration for Major Jack Connor Davidson, July Fourth, at the Emerald Creek City Park. It’ll be an afternoon of food, festivities and remembrance as a celebratory memorial painting for Jack will be unveiled by our own Top Gun hometown hero, Lieutenant Colonel Egan Donnelly.”

Well, hell. Both sentences were full-on gut punches and thick gobs of emotional baggage. Memorial. Life celebration. Remembrances. The icing on that gob was the last part.

Top Gun hometown hero.

Egan was, indeed, a former Top Gun. He’d won the competition a dozen years ago when he’d been a navy lieutenant flying F-16s. The hometown part was accurate, too, since he’d been born and raised in Emerald Creek, but that hero was the biggest of big-assed lies.

“I can’t go,” Egan heard himself say once he’d managed to clear the lump in his throat.

She nodded as if that were the exact answer she’d expected. “I’m guessing you’ll be on duty?”

He’d make damn sure he was, but wasn’t it ironic that the memorial celebration would fall on the one weekend of the month he usually went home to help his dad on the family ranch? Maybe Jack’s mom knew that, or maybe the woman just believed that such an event would be a good fit for the Fourth of July.

It wasn’t.

Barbecue, hot dogs, beer and such didn’t go well with the crapload of memories something like that would stir. He didn’t need a memorial or a life celebration to remember Jack. Egan remembered him daily, hourly even, and after three years, the grief and guilt hadn’t lost any steam.

“I’ll let Tilly know you can’t be there,” Alana said, referring to Jack’s mother. “She’s mentioned contacting your stepmom to see if she could be there for the unveiling.”

“Good luck with that,” he muttered, and Alana’s sound of agreement confirmed that she understood it was a long shot.

What would likely end up happening was that his brother Cal would get roped into doing the “honors.” He’d known Jack, and Cal’s need to do the right thing would have him stepping in.

“The last time I ran into Tilly, she didn’t want to discuss anything involving Jack’s death,” Egan recalled.

Alana nodded. “That’s still true. Nothing about how he died, et cetera. She only wants to chat about the things he did when he was alive.”

“So, why do a memorial painting?” Egan wanted to know.

“I’m not sure, but it’s possible the painting will be another life celebration deal that she’ll want hung in some prominent part of town like city hall or the library. In other words, maybe the painting will have nothing to do with Jack even being in the military.

Tilly was proud of him,” she quickly added. “But she’s never fully wrapped her mind around losing him.”

That made sense. The one time he’d tried to talk to her about Jack’s death, she’d shut him down. As if not talking about his death would somehow breathe some life back into him.

“There’s one more thing,” Alana went on, and this time she took a pale yellow envelope from her purse and handed it to him. “It’s a letter from Colleen.”

Egan had already reached for it but yanked back his hand as if the envelope were a coiled rattler ready to sink its fangs into his flesh. The mention of his ex-wife tended to do that. Memories of Colleen didn’t fall into the “hell on steroids” category like Jack’s. More like the “don’t let the door hit your cheating ass” category. Colleen had obviously liked that direction just fine since she hadn’t spoken a word to him since the divorce.

He glanced at the envelope, scowled. “A letter? Is it some kind of twelve-step deal about making amends or something?” he asked.

Alana shook her head. “No, I think it’s a living will of sorts.”

That erased his scowl. “Is Colleen dying?”

“Not that I know of, but she apparently decided she wanted to make her last wishes known. She sent letters for me, our aunt and your dad. I have his if you want to give it to him.”

Egan reached out again to stop her from retrieving it, and Alana used the opportunity to put the letter for him in his hand. “I don’t want this,” he insisted.

“Totally understand. I read mine,” she admitted. “Along with spelling out her end-of-life wishes—cremation, no funeral, no headstone—she wants us to have some sister time, like a vacation or something.”

Egan had no idea how much contact Alana and Colleen had with each other these days, but it was possible when Colleen had walked out on him, she’d also walked out on Alana. He thought he detected some animosity in Alana’s tone and expression.

He went straight to the trash can in the adjoining kitchen and tossed the envelope on top of the oozing heap of the sticky chicken rice bowl that had been at least a week past its prime when he’d dumped it the night before.

“I’m not interested in wife time with her,” he muttered, knowing he sounded bitter and hating that he still was.

Unlike what he was still going through with Jack, though, his grief and anger with Colleen had trickled down to almost nothing. Almost. He now just considered her a mistake and was glad she was out of his life. Some days, he could even hope that she was happy with the Mr. Wonderful artist that she’d left him for.

When he turned back to Alana, he saw she had watched the letter trashing, and she was now combing those jeweled green eyes over his face as if trying to suss out what was going on in his head. Egan decided to diffuse that with a question that fell into 

the polite small talk that would have happened had this been a normal visit.

“Uh, how are you doing?” he asked. On the surface, that didn’t seem to be a safe area of conversation since it could lead to that screaming rant over his huge part in her husband’s death. But Egan realized he would welcome the rant.

Because he deserved it.

Alana took a deep breath. “Well, despite nearly everyone in town deciding I should live out the rest of my life as a widow, I’ve started dating again.”

That got his attention. Not because he hadn’t known about the town’s feelings. And not because he believed she shouldn’t have a second chance at romance. But Egan had thought she didn’t want such a chance, that she was still as buried in the past as he was. Apparently not.

“I’m only doing virtual dating for now,” she went on, not sounding especially thrilled with that. “Last week, I had a virtual date with a guy who has six goats and eleven chickens in his one-bedroom apartment in Houston.”

Egan didn’t especially want to smile, but he did, anyway. “Sounds like a prize catch. You’d never have to buy eggs again. Or fertilizer.”

She shrugged. “He was a prize compared to the one I had the week before. Within the first minute of conversation, he wanted to know the circumference of my nipples.” Alana stopped, her eyes widening as if she hadn’t expected to share that.

Egan smiled again, but this one was forced. He 

hadn’t wanted Alana to think he was shocked or offended, though he was indeed shocked. He’d never considered nipple size one way or another.

He’d especially never considered anything about Alana’s nipples.

And he hated that was now in his head. That kind of stuff could mess with things that already had a shaky status quo.

“Dating at thirty-five isn’t as much a ‘fish in the sea’ situation as it is more of a, uh, well, swamp,” Alana explained. “Think scaly critters, slithery, that sort of thing, with the potential and hope that some actual fish lingering about will eventually come out of hiding.”

That didn’t sound appealing at all, but then he hadn’t had to hit any of the dating sites. He could thank the eternal string of matchmakers for that. Unlike the widowed Alana, apparently everyone thought a divorced guy in his thirties shouldn’t be solo. Especially a guy who’d had his “heart broken” when his wife had walked out on him right before his best friend had been killed.

“How about you?” she asked, clearly aiming for a change of subject and her own shot at small talk. “Have you jumped into dating waters?”

He shook his head. “Too busy.”

She broke their unwritten rule by locking her gaze with his for a second or two. “Yeah. Busy,” she repeated. And it sounded as if that were code for a whole bunch of things. For instance, wounded. Damaged. Guarded. Guilty.

All of the above applied to him.

It was hard for Egan to think about his happiness when he’d robbed Jack of his. Busy, though, was a much safer term for it.

“Well, I gotta go,” Alana said when the silence turned awkward, as it always did between them. “I’ll let Tilly know you won’t be at the life celebration so she can find someone else to do the unveiling.”

Egan frowned when a thought occurred to him. “She won’t ask you to do it, will she?” Because he couldn’t imagine that it’d be any easier for Alana than it would be for him.

“No.” Another sigh went with that. “Tilly still has me firmly in the ‘grieving widow’ category, which apparently will preclude me from lifting a veil on a painting and doing other things such as dating or appearing too happy when I’m in public.”

He wanted to ask, Aren’t you still a grieving widow? But that would go well beyond small talk. It could lead to an actual conversation that would drag feelings and emotions to the surface. No way did he want to deal with that.

Obviously, Alana wasn’t on board for such a chat, either, because she headed for the door, giving him a forced smile and a quick glance before she left and went to her car. Egan watched her, doling out his own forced smile and what had to be a stupid-looking wave.

Since he didn’t want to stand around and think about this visit, Colleen’s trashed letter—or Alana’s nipples—he grabbed his flight cap and keys so he could go to his truck. He barely made it a step, though, before his phone dinged with another text.

Great. Another photo trip down memory lane.

But it wasn’t.

It was his father’s name on the screen, but there was no picture. Only six words that sent Egan’s heart to his knees.

Get to Emerald Creek Hospital now.

Excerpted from Heart Like a Cowboy by Delores Fossen. Copyright © 2023 by Delores Fossen. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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Author Bio 

USA Today bestselling author, Delores Fossen, has sold over 125 novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award and was a finalist for the prestigious Rita ®. In addition, she’s had nearly a hundred short stories and articles published in national magazines.

Social Media Links

Author Website

Facebook: @Delores Fossen

Twitter: @dfossen

Instagram: @deloresfossen

Purchase Links

BookShop.org

Harlequin 

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Books-A-Million

Powell’s

Book Review: Broken Cowboy by Jamie Schulz

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

BROKEN COWBOY (The Montana Men Book #1) by Jamie Schulz is the first book in a new cowboy western contemporary romance series featuring a strong, but struggling owner of a run-down farm and the broken drifting cowboy who wants to help and protect her. This is a steamy, emotional romance that kept me curled up reading from the beginning to the end.

Addie Malory completely changed her life and bought a farm. It turned into more work than she expected and when the help she has make unwanted advances she fires them. Now on her way to town, she finds a cowboy walking down the road and when she finds out he has work experience on farms and the rodeo offers him a job on her farm.

Cade Brody is drifting after being betrayed by his brother. When his truck breaks down, he is grateful for the ride and the offer of a job. Cade is instantly attracted to his new boss, but he also has a lot of emotional baggage. His protective instincts kick in when the farm is vandalized.

Addie and Cade wrestle with their building chemistry as Addie is being squeezed financially and Cade, while wanting to protect her, also must deal with his past if he wants to move forward.

Addie and Cade are dealing with so much baggage and yet they are able to let their relationship grow. While I would have liked a little more honest communication at times, they do move from friends to lovers at a believable pace even with the instant attraction. I liked that Addie was a curvy girl who found a man who appreciated her curves and made her feel beautiful. Cade is a hero who needed Addie and her love to begin to deal with his past and forgiveness. The sex scenes are explicit and smokin’ hot, but not gratuitous. All the secondary characters are well written, and I am looking forward to seeing them in the coming books in this series. The suspense sub-plot kept me guessing and I was surprised at the resolution.

I can highly recommend this cowboy western contemporary romance for an emotional and engaging HEA read.

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Author Bio

Jamie Schulz is a contemporary Western romance and dystopian cowboy romance author. She loves to write about heroes with vulnerabilities and strong, feisty heroines who are a match for the men they love. To her, every one of her stories, no matter how dark, must have a happy ending, and she strives to make them impossible to put down until you get there.

Jamie has been writing and making up stories for most of her life and hopes to one day reach the bestsellers lists. Her book Broken Cowboy won the Global Book Awards Gold Medal for romance and was a RONE Awards finalist. Jake’s Redemption—a full-length prequel to the dark, dystopian world of the Angel Eyes series—was also an award-winner in the Global Ebook Awards.

Cowboys, ice cream, and reading almost any kind of romance are among her (not so) secret loves. She balances her free time between reading her favorite romance authors—in genres ranging from erotica and dark romance to sweet historicals and contemporary romance—and spending time with those she is closest to. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her family and their fur babies, and she enjoys hearing from her fans.

Social Media Links

* Website: thejamieschulz.com/

* Facebook: www.facebook.com/thejamieschulz

* Twitter: twitter.com/TheJamieSchulz

* Instagram: instagram.com/thejamieschulz/

* BookBub: www.bookbub.com/authors/jamie-schulz

Blog Tour/Feature Post: The Loner by Diana Palmer

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE LONER by Diana Palmer on this Spring 2023 HTP Books Romance Blog Tour.

Below you will find a book summary, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Summary

Tanner Everett spends most of his time jet-setting around the world. But that hasn’t stopped innocent Stasie Bolton, the daughter of a neighboring rancher, from falling head-over-heels for the jet-setting playboy. So Stasie is secretly thrilled when both her father proposes linking the properties in matrimony…which means Tanner will be hers, for good.

Despite his globetrotting ways, Tanner can’t help but be enthralled by the quiet girl next door. But as the embers between the two are fanned into flames, Tanner wonders if he’s found forever in the last place he ever expected.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61155440-the-loner?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=Hwy4PUpazj&rank=5

THE LONER

Author: Diana Palmer

ISBN: 9781335545312

Publication Date: April 25, 2023

Publisher: Canary Street Press

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Excerpt

ONE 

Anastasia Bolton, nicknamed Stasia, was nineteen today. She looked at herself critically in her bedroom mirror, making a face at her lack of beauty. She had a pretty mouth and big, soft brown eyes. Her cheekbones were high, her ears small. She was only medium height, but her figure was perfect. She had elegant long legs, just right for riding horses, which she did, a lot. She’d done barrel racing when she was younger, but art had taken over her leisure hours. She painted beautifully.

She was named after a semi-fictional character in a movie her romantic late mother had loved, Anastasia, which starred Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergman. Her mother had loved the movie and named her only child after the unforgettable heroine. Stasia lived with her father, Glenn Bolton, on a huge beef ranch in Branntville, Texas. Her last living grandparents, her dad’s parents, had died of a deadly virus the summer before her graduation from high school. Her mother had died tragically when Stasia was only thirteen. There was no other family left, just Stasia and Dad. They were close.

Glenn Bolton was only fifty years old, but he had a very bad heart and he was in the final stages of heart failure. It was treatable, but he hadn’t shared that knowledge with Stasia. He was terrified of the open-heart surgery treatment would require. He and the doctor had spoken privately the week before, and afterward, Glenn had been quieter than usual and he’d contacted his attorney. That had been a private conversation as well. Stasia worried about what was being discussed. She didn’t want to think about what her life would be like without him. She had no family except him.

Well, there were the Everetts, who lived next door to her father’s ranch on their own enormous ranch, the Big Spur. They were sort of like family, after all, since Stasia had known them all her life. Cole Everett and his youngest son, John, were frequent visitors. Glenn had the only groundwater suitable for ranching in the small community of Branntville, Texas. A river ran like a silver ribbon through his entire property, so he wasn’t dependent on wells for watering his cattle, as other ranchers were. He approved of Cole and John. He wanted more than anything to see his daughter settled with one of the Everett sons, but she was only in love with one of them—with Tanner, the eldest, who was the cookie-cutter design of the spoiled rich kid. Cole hadn’t spoiled Tanner. That had been his wife, Heather, a former singing star and current songwriter. Their firstborn had been the light of her life. He was twenty-five now, a strong, incredibly handsome young man with dark hair and pale blue eyes, almost silver like his father’s, and a Hollywood sort of physique. He liked variety in his women, but for the past year he’d had a girlfriend who enjoyed the jet-setting lifestyle that he favored.

Cole had given Tanner a Santa Gertrudis stud ranch that he’d bought when the owner went into a nursing home, hoping to settle down his wild son. It was a good property, adjoining his and the Bolton properties, but the water situation there was dire. There had been drought in the past year, and they’d had to drill wells to get enough water just to keep the livestock watered. The Bolton place had a river running through it, and many small streams that ran over into the Everetts’ holdings. However, that water didn’t belong to them so they were unable to divert it for any agricultural purposes.

For a long time, Cole had toyed with the idea of a merger with Glenn Bolton, but Glenn wouldn’t hear of it. He found all sorts of reasons for his stubborn attitude. Cole saw right through him. Stasia was still living at home, and she was in love with Tanner. The fly in the ointment was that Tanner didn’t like Stasia. He liked experienced, sophisticated women like Julienne Harper, his girlfriend. Tanner could have made an empire out of the ranch Cole had given him, but he wasn’t home enough. He and Julienne were always on the go somewhere. Skiing in Colorado, parties on somebody’s yacht off Monaco, summers in Nice. And so it went.

Stasia knew about Julienne. Everybody in Branntville did. It was a small community where gossip flourished. It was mostly kind gossip, because the people who lived there had known each other’s families for generations. Tanner was one of them. But Julienne, who was sarcastic and condescending, was an outsider, a city woman who’d alienated just about everyone she came into contact with.

Tanner had a couple, Juan and Minnie Martinez, who ran the house and managed the ranch for him while he played around the world. They’d just threatened to quit because of Julienne’s last visit to Tanner’s ranch. Cole had played peacemaker. The Martinezes were good at ranch management, and somebody had to keep the place going. Cole despaired of Tanner ever settling down to real work. He’d always had everything he wanted. Cole, who adored his wife of twenty-five years, hadn’t had the heart to make her stop coddling Tanner, while there had still been time to knock some of the selfishness and snobby attitude out of him. Now, it was too late.

Stasia came into the living room where the men were talking with a tray of coffee and sliced pound cake. All three men stood up, an ancient custom in rural areas that still had the power to make her feel important. Her generation cared less about such things, as a rule, but Stasia was a throwback. Glenn had raised her the way his parents had raised him. She’d absorbed those conservative attitudes on the way of the modern world. She hated it. She hated it most because Tanner liked women who belonged to that sophisticated crowd.

John Everett looked like his mother, Heather, in coloring, at least. He was big and blond and drop-dead handsome, with his father’s silver eyes. His young sister, Odalie, also looked like Heather, with pale blue eyes and blond hair. Tanner was the one who most resembled Cole, who was tall and still handsome. Tanner had the same thick, dark hair but with pale blue eyes that just missed being the silver of his father’s.

John went forward and took the heavy tray from her. He grinned. “I love cake.”

She laughed, a soft, breathy sound. “I know.”

She smiled at him with warm affection. He was like a cuddly big brother to her. He knew that and hid his disappointment. “How’s the art going?” Cole asked with a smile.

“I sold a painting!” she exclaimed happily. “There was a man passing through, from someplace back East, and he saw the landscape I painted in the local art shop. He said it was far too cheap for something that lovely, so he gave Mr. Dill, the owner, three times my asking price. I was just astonished.”

“You paint beautifully,” John said, his eyes brimming with love that she tried not to see. He indicated the landscapes on the walls of the Bolton home; one with running horses in a thunderstorm was entrancing.

“Thanks,” she said, flushing a little. “Mr. Dill said the man looked Italian. He was big and muscular and he had these two other big guys with him. He was passing through on the way to San Antonio on business.”

“Sounds ominous,” John teased.

She laughed as she poured coffee all around and offered cake on saucers with sparkling clean forks. “He told Mr. Dill I should be selling those paintings up in New Jersey, where he was from, or even New York City, where he owned an art gallery and museum. He said he was going to talk to some people about me! He even took down Mr. Dill’s number so he could get in touch.” She sighed. “It was probably just one of those offhand remarks people make and then forget, but it was nice of him to say so.”

“You really do have the talent, Stasia,” Cole told her. “It would be nice if he could put you in touch with some people in the art world back East. If that’s what you want to do with your life,” he added gently.

She smiled at him. “I like to paint.” She grimaced. “I’d like to marry and have a family, though.”

“No reason you couldn’t do both,” John said. “And if you had to fly back East to talk to people, well, we have a share in a corporate jet, you know. You could let us know when you had business there and I could go with you.”

She smiled sedately. “Thanks, John, but it’s early days yet.”

“How’s Tanner?” Glenn asked.

Cole’s light eyes grew glittery. “Off on another trip. To Italy, this time. My daughter’s studying opera in Rome. He thought he’d stop by and see her on the way to Greece.”

“Odalie has a beautiful voice,” Stasia replied, hiding disappointment. She’d hoped Tanner might show up with his brother and father. “Does she want to sing at the Met eventually?”

“She does,” Cole replied. He drew in a long breath and sipped coffee. “I’ll hate having her so far from home. But you have to let kids grow up.” He glanced at John with affection. “At least this one doesn’t have itchy feet yet!”

“I’m a homebody,” John said easily. “I love cattle. I love ranching. I don’t want to leave home,” he added, with a covert glance at Stasia.

“Good thing,” Cole chuckled. “I have to leave the ranch to somebody when I’m gone.”

“You’re not going anywhere for years,” Glenn chided. “The Everetts are a long-lived bunch. Your grandfather lived to be ninety.”

“Yes, but my father died before he was sixty, and my mother died before I married Heather,” Cole replied. His face tautened as he relived those days, when a lie split him apart from Heather, whom he’d loved with all his heart. It had been a torment, those months apart before he discovered that a jealous rival had told him lies about Heather’s parentage and made it sound as if he and Heather were actually related. They weren’t, but it was heartbreaking just to think it. Heather had been singing in nightclubs in those days. Cole had been cruel to her because her feelings for him were all too visible and he thought nothing could ever be allowed to happen between them. When he found out the truth, Heather had already backed out of his life. It had taken a long time to win her back.

He glanced at Stasia. She reminded him of Heather in her youth. She wasn’t as beautiful as his wife, but she was sweet and gentle and she’d make someone a good wife and mother. He knew that it wasn’t going to be Tanner. The boy had mentioned weeks ago that he hated having to talk to her father at all because Stasia would sit and stare at him as if he were a tub of kittens needing a home. He found her juvenile and dull. John, on the other hand, adored her. Cole grimaced as he processed the thought, because Stasia so obviously thought of John as the brotherly type.

“Now, about what I mentioned on the phone,” Cole began as he finished his coffee and put it and the cup and saucer back on the tray.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Glenn broke in, with a smile. “But I’ll never give you permission to dam the streams.” Cole sighed. “Only one stream, the one nearest my south pasture. The cattle are going to suffer for that decision,” he told the older man. “We’ve drilled every well we can.” “I know that,” Glenn told him. “I’ve got things in motion that will solve your problem. Don’t bother asking; won’t tell,” he chuckled. “But you’re worrying over something that’s already fixed. Just a matter of time. Short time, at that,” he added with a faraway look in his eyes. Cole started to argue, realized it would do no good and just shrugged good-naturedly. “Okay. I’ll rely on your conscience.” “Good place to put trust, since I do have one,” Glenn replied.

He scowled. “That boy of yours got himself into hot water in France, they say. It was on the front page of the tabloid those Lombard people back East publish.” “It wasn’t Tanner who started the trouble,” Cole replied curtly. “It was his…companion, Julienne Harper. She started a row in a high-ticket French restaurant with another woman, and her companion started cursing and threw a punch at Tanner when he intervened. Tanner had some explaining to do.” He glanced at Glenn. “This time, I didn’t interfere, and I wouldn’t let Heather do it, either. The boy’s got to grow up and take responsibility for his own actions.”

“According to the tabloid, he made restitution for the victim’s dress and paid the dentist to replace one of her date’s front teeth.” Glenn shook his head. “Reminds me of you, when you were that age,” he added with twinkling eyes. “Got arrested for a bar brawl when you got home from the service, I believe…?” Cole glared at him. “Some yahoo made a nasty joke about what soldiers did overseas. I took exception. The guy wasn’t ever even in a good fight, what would he know about being a soldier?” “Well, your dad kept him from suing, at least,” Glenn said, and chuckled. “Most people around here were scared of your father anyway. He was a real hell-raiser.” Cole smiled sadly. “He was, and he died far too young.” Glenn knew some stories about Cole’s father that he wasn’t about to share. Some secrets, he reasoned, should be kept.

“Your son was in black ops when he went in the military, wasn’t he?” he asked suddenly. Cole looked thunderous. “Yes, he was. I didn’t find out until he was back home.” He sighed. “I told him he had to get an education, so he joined the Army and got it that way. At least he finally decided that risking his life daily wasn’t conducive to running a ranch. It’s one reason I bought the old Banks property for him, to draw him back home.” He leaned forward. “I thought if his income depended on ranching, he’d make better life decisions. At least he did get a degree in business, even if it was between assignments.” He laughed shortly. “And then he met her.” He shook his head.

Everybody knew what that meant. “Her.” Julienne Harper. The fly in the ointment. She’d lured Tanner back into the jet-set lifestyle the military had purged him of, and now he was even less responsible than he’d been before. “A bad woman can make a fool of a good man. And sometimes, the reverse,” Glenn added. He didn’t mention his late wife, but they all knew the tragic story. His wife had been suddenly and hopelessly attracted to a man straight out of prison who’d worked on the ranch. The tragic consequences were still being lived down, by Glenn and his daughter. “She was a good woman,” Glenn said stubbornly. “She was just impulsive and easily led.” “Which is how many good people end up in prison,” John said sadly. “I’m hopeful that we can keep my big brother out of it.” Cole stood up with his son and clapped him on the back. “Something I’ll never have to worry about with you,” he said with obvious affection.

“At least one of my kids turned out right.” He was referring to Odalie, who’d had a brush with the law in her teens, just as Tanner had—when going into the military was the only thing that saved him from serving time. Tanner had fallen in with a few ex-cons and gotten drunk with them. He passed out in the back seat just before they robbed a convenience store, but Cole had to get attorneys and pull a lot of strings to keep his son out of jail. “Most kids turn out right eventually, even those who have a rough start,” Glenn said with a smile. “Yours turned out very well,” Cole said, smiling gently at Stasia. “She reminds me of Heather at her age.” “And that’s a compliment indeed,” Glenn said, watching his daughter flush shyly. “Well, we’d better get back home,” Cole said. “We’re getting ready for roundup. If you need any help over here, when you start, you know we’ll do anything you need us for.” Glenn smiled and shook hands with both men. “Yes, I do know. I’ll send my hands over if you need extras. We’re waiting a week to start.” “We’d be grateful. No matter how many hands you have, a few more are always welcome.” “Done. Just say the word.”

“I don’t guess you’d like to take in a movie this weekend?” John asked Stasia on the way out the door. She hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She smiled gently. “I would, but I’m working on a landscape and I have a real incentive to finish it quickly now, just in case that nice man does give my name to somebody back East,” she added with just the right touch of regret. She liked John, but she didn’t want to encourage him. Nobody could replace Tanner in her heart. “Okay,” John said easily, hiding his disappointment. “Rain check?” “Sure,” she lied. He grinned and they all went out onto the long, wide front porch to see the Everetts off.

Cole stared into the distance. “Good weather, for early spring,” he said, admiring the grass that was just getting nice and green in the pastures beyond. “I hope it holds.” “So do I,” Glenn replied. “See you.” Glenn threw up a hand. Stasia waved. The Everetts got into one of their top-of-the-line black ranch trucks and drove away.

“John’s sweet on you,” Glenn mentioned over supper that night. “I know,” she groaned. “I like him so much. He’s like the brother I never had. But he wants more than I can give him, Dad. It wouldn’t be right to encourage him.” Glenn nodded. “I agree.” He cocked his head at her. “It’s still Tanner, isn’t it?” She grimaced and nodded. “I can’t help it. I’ve been crazy about him since I was fifteen, and he can’t see me for dust. It’s such a shame that I’m not beautiful and rich and sophisticated,” she added heavily. “A man who loves you won’t care what you are or what you’ve got,” he said gently. “I guess not.” She poked at her salad with a fork. “Julienne’s really beautiful. Of course, she doesn’t talk to the peasants. I saw them together in Branntville just before they left for overseas. She looked me up and down and just laughed.” Her face burned at the memory. “So did he, in fact. He thinks I’m a kid.”

Glenn had a faraway look in his eyes. “That could change,” he said, almost to himself. He turned his green eyes toward her, the same green eyes that he’d hoped she might inherit. But her brown ones were like his late wife’s, he reflected, big and brown and beautiful. “You’ll inherit this ranch,” he added. “I hope you’ll have the good sense to find a manager if you don’t want the responsibility of running it yourself. And I hope you won’t be taken in by any slick-talking young man who sees you as a meal ticket,” he added worriedly, because she wasn’t street-smart. “This property has been in our family for a hundred years. I’d hate to see it go to an amusement park for tourists.” She frowned. “Why would it go to someone like that?” “Oh, this guy offered me a lot of money for the property just the other day, when I was at the bank renewing a couple of CDs. The bank president introduced us.” “You told him no, of course, right, Dad?” she asked.

He pursed his lips. He drew in a breath. “I told him I’d think about it.” He didn’t tell her that the ranch was mortgaged right up to the eaves of the house. His bad business decisions had led the place to ruin, something Cole Everett knew. It was why Cole was trying to get the ranch. But then, he’d have it soon, Glenn thought sadly. He couldn’t let Stasia become a charity case, and the sale of the ranch wouldn’t even cover the debts, as things stood. “But it’s right next door to the Everetts’ new ranch, the one Tanner owns,” she said worriedly. “Can you imagine how nervous purebred cattle would react to an amusement park next door?” “I can,” he said. “Tanner could lose everything,” she said. “His livelihood depends on the new ranch, especially since his dad has already split the inheritance at Big Spur between John and Odalie. He figured Tanner would have enough of a fortune with the Rocking C.” The Rocking C was the name of Tanner’s ranch. The previous owner, an elderly Easterner, had called it his rocking chair spread. Hence the name.

“Well, Tanner might have to make a hard decision one day, when I’m gone,” Glenn said, and smiled to himself. “Are you plotting something, Dad?” she asked, worried. “Me?” He contrived to look innocent. “Now what would I have to be plotting about?” He chuckled. “How about some of that apple pie you made? This new heart medicine my doctor put me on makes me hungrier, for some reason.”

“You never did tell me what he said when you went to him last week,” she mentioned. “Same old same old. Take it easy, take my meds, don’t do any heavy lifting,” he answered, lying through his teeth. He was due to speak to a cardiologist soon, who would decide if the open-heart surgery Glenn was frightened of was required to keep him alive. A quadruple bypass, the doctor had recommended, and soon. Too many fats, too much cholesterol— despite Stasia’s efforts to make him eat healthy food—a history of heart problems and not recognizing his limitations had placed Glenn in a bind. Glenn hadn’t shared that information with his daughter. No need to worry her. Besides, he felt fine.

A few days later, just after his cardiologist’s office had phoned with an early appointment to see the intervention cardiologist, he started up the steps into the house and fell down dead.

Tanner Everett was cursing at the top of his lungs, so loudly that Cole had to call him down before Heather heard her son. “Go ahead. Rage,” Cole snapped. “But the will can’t be broken. Nobody in Branntville will agree that Glenn Bolton wasn’t in his right mind when he made it.”

“An amusement park! Next to my purebred herd!” Tanner whirled on his heel and glared at his parent. “And if I don’t marry damned Stasia, that’s my future.” Cole felt the resentment in the younger man. In his place, he’d have felt it as well. “It was a rotten thing to do,” Cole agreed. “But we have to deal with what we’ve got, not what we wish we had.”

“I’m twenty-five years old,” Tanner raged. “I’m not ready to get married! Not for years yet!” He stared at his father. “You were older than me when you married Mother.” “Yes, I was. I played the field for years.” He looked down at his boots. “I loved your mother. For a long time. But she had a rival who lied and said Heather and I were related by blood. She took years away from us.” Tanner knew the story. All the Everett kids did. It would have been a tragedy if Cole hadn’t found out the truth in time.

“Heather was just about Stasia’s age when I fell in love with her. She sang like a nightingale, just like Odalie does now. She was beautiful. She still is,” he added softly. Tanner, who’d never felt love for a woman, just stared at him without comprehension.

“There must be some way to dispute the will,” Tanner said doggedly. “Go ahead and look for one. But I’ll tell you what our attorney told me: no way in hell. You marry Stasia or the property goes to the Blue Sky Management Properties. Stasia will get nothing.”

“Bull! The ranch is worth millions,” Tanner shot back. “It was. Glenn was no rancher, even if his father was,” Cole replied curtly. “The place is mortgaged to the hilt, and you can’t tell Stasia that. She’s got enough misery right now coping with her dad’s death.” He grimaced. Even he was sorry for Stasia’s situation. She couldn’t help what she felt for him, he supposed. But he was never going to return it. She had to know that.

“Which leads to my suggestion. I’m giving you the Rocking Chair ranch, and merging Stasia’s with Big Spur. We can pay off the debt by disposing of most of Glenn’s beef cattle and replacing it with our purebred Santa Gerts. In other words,” Cole added quietly, “either you make a go of your new ranch or you’ll be out in the cold. I’m not changing my will, Tanner,” he added firmly. “I’m sorry. But you could do worse. And it’s about time you stayed home and managed your own damned ranch and stopped acting like some Eastern playboy.”

“I hate dust and cattle,” Tanner muttered. “You should have given this ranch to John. Then he could have married Stasia.” “She wouldn’t have him,” Cole said simply. “She doesn’t love him.” He jammed his hands into his slacks pockets. “She doesn’t love me, or she wouldn’t have encouraged her father to do this to me!”

“I don’t think she had anything to do with it. Glenn had a bad heart and she had no other family.” “You could have adopted her,” Tanner said with a sarcastic bite in his voice. Cole’s silver eyes narrowed and started to glitter. Tanner cut his losses. “All right, damn it!” he muttered. “I’ll do what I have to. But I’m not settling down to aprons and babies and white picket fences! Not for any woman!” “Nobody’s asking you to.” Cole felt sorry for Stasia. She loved Tanner. Maybe, maybe love on one side would be enough. But he was worried. Tanner was like a stallion with a new rope around his neck. This wasn’t going to end well.

Stasia was in shock. She sat at the kitchen table and made the funeral arrangements, relying on the funeral home and her father’s attorney for clarity. She was penniless. Worse, her father had forced his attorney to put a clause in the will. Tanner married Stasia, or her father’s property went to the amusement park man, who would turn it into a loud, cluttered nightmare for Cole’s horses and cattle. She’d heard the terms of her father’s will from their attorney, Mr. Bellamy. She was shocked and miserable, especially when she recalled what her father had told her only days before, about the offer from the amusement park man. She’d thought she’d get at least enough to live on from the deal, but it wasn’t like that at all. Her father had kept so much from her. The ranch was worthless, mortgaged and debt-ridden. There was no way she could run it for a profit, or even hire someone to run it. And if the amusement park man got it, it would destroy Cole’s ranch as well as Tanner’s. Neither of them could afford to tear down existing stables and barns and rebuild them in a safer location. In fact, there would be no safer location, with that overlit nightmare of noise and light nearby.

Not for one minute did she think Tanner would give in to her father’s subdued blackmail and marry her. She was ashamed that he’d even put that clause into his will. Tanner would probably think it was her idea. When she finished the preliminaries, she went to her father’s closet to look for his one good suit and his best pair of wing-tip shoes. The sight of the suit set her off. She dropped down onto the spotless paisley duvet on her father’s bed and bawled until her eyes were red and her throat hurt. That was probably why she didn’t hear the knock at the front screen door, which wasn’t locked. It was also probably why she wasn’t aware that Tanner had come into the room and was standing in the doorway, just watching her.

He knew she loved her father. He was the only family she had left. It hurt him to watch her cry. He’d had no real feelings for her, except irritation that she was infatuated with him and let it show too much. But she was really hurting. He’d never lost anyone in his family. Both sets of his grandparents had been dead when he was born. He didn’t know death except as an observer.

“Stasia?” he called quietly. She jumped, startled, and lifted a wet face with red-lined eyes to his. She swallowed down the pincushion that seemed stuck there and swiped at her eyes with the tail of the bright yellow T-shirt she was wearing. “It wasn’t my idea, what he put in the will,” she said, as if he’d already accused her of engineering it. Angry brown eyes warred with his pale blue ones. 

Excerpted from The Loner. Copyright © 2023 by Diana Palmer. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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Author Bio

 The prolific author of more than one hundred books, Diana Palmer got her start as a newspaper reporter. A New York Times bestselling author and voted one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humor. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.

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Book Review: Whirlwind by Janet Dailey

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

WHIRLWIND (The Champions Book #1) by Janet Dailey is the first book in a western romance/romantic suspense trilogy featuring the three Champion sisters of the Alamo Canyon Ranch set in southern Arizona. They are carrying on the family legacy of raising and breeding bucking bulls for the professional rodeo circuit.

Lexie Champion has been invited to bring Whirlwind, her promising young bull to participate in the PBR. This could radically change the money problems their ranch has been having since the death of both their father and brother. Whirlwind is the talk of the circuit and brings the unwanted attention of family competitors interested in buying the talented bull and even their ranch and with that come threats and accidents that just might not be accidents.

Shane Tully is a ranked bull rider who is sent to offer Lexie an offer on Whirlwind from the man he works for who is scheming to take not only the bull, but the sister’s ranch. Shane is immediately taken with the intelligent and beautiful young Lexie, but she wants nothing to do with him not only because he works for a family enemy, but also because she refuses to be involved with a professional bull rider. Neither can resist the emotional pull of the other, but when Shane is trampled in the ring, both need to find their way in this new reality, but will it be together or apart?

This story pulls you right in. Lexie and her sister are working so hard to keep their ranch going and Whirlwind just may be the bull that brings them financial stability. Lexie is a wonderful heroine with her love of Whirlwind and the ranch, her intelligence in wanting to advance ranch practices to help them in the future and her loving and caring heart. Shane is a hero who goes through very difficult life changes and fights for what he wants in his future. The two of them together make a powerful couple despite Shane’s physical disabilities. The author’s descriptions of the ranch’s Arizona landscape and the arenas where the bull riding competitions take place are so vivid that you feel you are there. The suspense plot was intertwined well throughout the story, but I was surprised by the lack of law enforcement involvement.

I am happy this is a trilogy because I did not want this story to end, and I am looking forward to the other sister’s stories.

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Author Bio

Janet Anne Haradon Dailey was an American author of numerous romance novels as Janet Dailey (her married name). Her novels have been translated into nineteen languages and have sold over 300 million copies worldwide.

Born in 1944 in Storm Lake, Iowa, she attended secretarial school in Omaha, Nebraska before meeting her husband, Bill. Bill and Janet worked together in construction and land development until they “retired” to travel throughout the United States, inspiring Janet to write the Americana series of romances, where she set a novel in every state of the Union. In 1974, Janet Dailey was the first American author to write for Harlequin. Her first novel was NO QUARTER ASKED.

She had since gone on to write approximately 90 novels, 21 of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List. She won many awards and accolades for her work, appearing widely on Radio and Television. Today, there are over three hundred million Janet Dailey books in print in 19 different languages, making her one of the most popular novelists in the world.

Janet Dailey passed away peacefully in her home in Branson on Saturday, December 14, 2013. She was 69.

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Book Review: Three Cowboys and a Baby by Kate Pearce

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

THREE COWBOYS AND A BABY by Kate Pearce is a heartfelt contemporary western romance full of misunderstandings, tension, humor, and love. This is the first book in a new trilogy featuring three sexy former Marines now cowboys on the Nilsen family ranch at the northern end of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range.

When Luke Nilsen left the service, he returned home to run his family’s ranch with two of his Marine brothers, Noah and Max. An old teammate shows up at the ranch out of the blue with his infant son, Sky, looking for the baby’s mother who supposedly lives in town. When he doesn’t find her, he sneaks out overnight and leaves the baby behind.

Noah Harding had to raise his three sisters while his mother worked to support them and he swears he will never have a child of his own, but until the baby’s mother turns up to claim him, he will do his best to take care of him. When Sky’s mother shows up at the ranch relieved to find her son safe, they become snowed in, and Noah learns there is more to the story and there may be more to his own feelings.

Jen Rossi knows her son’s father is unreliable and when she is delayed getting back from deployment, she never expected he would abandon their son with three men she doesn’t even know. Snowed in, Jen is especially helpful with her nursing skills after an accident. While she really appreciates the handsome, but taciturn Noah, she must consider her future with her son and the ever-present problems her ex can cause for her custody.

I like the author’s set up for this trilogy, the setting and the three friends. Their military service made them all close, but they also came back with some difficulties adjusting and the isolated, large ranch in the mountains is a perfect place to heal. Noah is gruff and has to have everything organized in a logical way which does not always line-up with emotions. Jen has grown up in foster care until her service and now whether she has found a man she can learn to trust and love; she must put hers and her son’s futures first. While I enjoyed all the back and forth while Noah and Jen are getting to know each other, there were times it went on too long for me when some things could have been taken care of by just some honest conversation. The sex scenes are smokin’ hot and explicit, but not gratuitous. All of the secondary characters are fully fleshed and realistic and I cannot wait to see who is going to meet their HEA match next.

I enjoyed this contemporary western romance and am looking forward to the other two books to come in the trilogy.

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Author Bio

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Kate Pearce was born in England in the middle of a large family of girls and quickly found that her imagination was far more interesting than real life. After acquiring a degree in history and barely escaping from the British Civil Service alive, she moved to California and then to Hawaii with her kids and her husband and set about reinventing herself as a romance writer.

She is known for both her unconventional heroes and her joy at subverting romance clichés. In her spare time she self publishes science fiction erotic romance, historical romance, and whatever else she can imagine.

Social Media Links

Website: https://www.katepearce.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kate4queen

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/688826.Kate_Pearce

Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch by Maisey Yates

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the HTP Holiday Romance Blog Tour for RODEO CHRISTMAS AT EVERGREEN RANCH (Gold Valley Book #13) by Maisey Yates.

Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Summary

Gold Valley’s rodeo champion is facing the toughest challenge of his life – a Christmas wedding!

Legendary bull-rider Jake Daniels has only one plan this holiday season – to ignore the pain it always brings. Until his best friend Callie Carson shows up on his ranch with a marriage proposal! Jake has lived so close to the edge it’s a miracle he’s still alive – he knows all about risk. But marrying the woman he craves more than anything feels like the biggest risk of all.

Callie Carson might be rodeo royalty, but to fulfil her dreams of riding saddle bronc, she needs her inheritance. And to access that, she needs a husband. But Jake the husband is deliciously different from Jake the friend, especially after the wild heat of their wedding night! He was only supposed to be her cowboy for Christmas, but Jake’s every heart-stopping touch has Callie questioning how she’ll ever be able to walk away.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56602626-rodeo-christmas-at-evergreen-ranch?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=8glGSZ1PLe&rank=1

RODEO CHRISTMAS AT EVERGREEN RANCH

Author: Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335959171

Publication Date: October 26, 2021

Publisher: HQN Books

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

RODEO CHRISTMAS AT EVERGREEN RANCH (Gold Valley Book #13) by Maisey Yates is another holiday contemporary western romance addition to the Gold Valley series. I always look forward to the Gold Valley books, but especially the ones set during the holidays.

Champion bull rider, Jake Daniels has returned to his ranch for the holidays leaving the rodeo circuit behind. He risked his life for years to obtain his dream of his own horse ranch and now he just has to make it through the holidays and the painful memories they bring.

Callie Carson is from a rodeo royalty family and has dreamed of riding saddle broncs instead of barrel racing. To fulfill her dream, she needs her inheritance and to get her inheritance before she turns thirty, she needs to be married.

Callie follows her long-time friend, Jake to his home in Gold Valley and proposes. Things begin to change and heat up as Callie’s friend becomes her husband and Jake may be taking the biggest chance of his life.

I always look forward to returning to this series or any romance by Maisey Yates. Jake and Callie are both dealing with difficult emotional baggage. While these two characters eventually come together for their HEA, there is a lot of grief and pain to get through first. Christmas has always played an emotional part in these stories and this one is no exception. I loved Jake and really felt for his painful past and the present feelings he had for Callie, but Callie was a little more difficult to care about because at times I felt she was too centered on herself and her own feelings. The sex scenes are explicit and smokin’ hot, but not gratuitous. While I enjoyed the romance when the H/h were finally emotionally together and I enjoyed the snippets of previous characters in the series, this was not my favorite of the Gold Valley series.

This is a good friends-to-lovers romance set during the holidays and I recommend the entire Gold Valley series.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

JAKE DANIELS HAD grown up knowing that life was short. When he was in high school, he’d lost his parents, and along with them, the sense that anything in this world was guaranteed.

That kind of thing changed a man.

It could make him afraid of his own shadow, worried about taking risks and filled with a sense of self-preservation.

It was either that, or he realized since there were no guarantees, he might as well go all in. Push those chips out to the center of the table and see if the gamble paid off.

He’d done some admittedly dumb stuff as a kid. Not gambling so much as acting out. But the rodeo had changed him. It had saved him.

He’d spent the last eighteen years gambling and doing pretty damn well for himself, it had to be said. Years spent in the rodeo, flinging himself around on the back of enraged bulls, had netted him a decent amount of money, and now that he was more or less ready to get out of the game, those winnings, and the amount of money his parents’ life insurance had left behind, had gotten him a big spread in Gold Valley.

He was going to be a rancher.

Not cattle, like his cousin Ryder. No. He was getting into horses. High-value breeds. Another gamble. It would either pay off, or ruin him.

That was the kind of life he liked. That was the kind of thing that made him feel alive.

And if this was retirement, hell, he was pretty damn into it. Thirty-two years old, and wealthy enough to figure out a way to live his dream. Not bad at all.

Of course, there were things he would miss about the rodeo. The people on the circuit were practically family now. So many years traveling around the same venues, getting busted up together, competing fiercely and going out for a beer after.

But it had been time to leave, and all it had taken was one fierce accident to teach him that.

And Gold Valley was his home, so this had been the place to go to when his time in the rodeo was done.

The day his parents had died, his aunt and uncle had also died, along with the mother of one of his closest friends. That had left a passel of orphaned children, a big old ranch that had once been run by their parents and a whole lot of chaos.

But it had been a good life. Other than all the crushingly sad parts.

His cousin Ryder had taken care of all of them, since he was the only one who’d been eighteen when the tragedy had happened.

He often wondered how they’d made it through without Ryder punching them all in the damn face.

He was sure that Ryder had wanted to from time to time.

Hell. Jake and Colt had been absolute assholes. Neither of them had handled losing their parents well. Well, was there a good way to handle that? He didn’t know. But at seventeen and fifteen, he and his brother had been mad at the world, and kicking against the one person who had been doing his best to help them.

They’d both left home and joined the rodeo, the Western take on running away and joining the circus.

It had taken some years and some maturity for him to fully appreciate what he’d had.

Because what Ryder had given to them had been bound up in his loss, and until he’d been in his midtwenties probably, he hadn’t fully been able to separate those two things and think of home, and his cousin, without a measure of pain and anger.

Even now, when he pulled into Hope Springs Ranch, a strange sensation took hold of him.

Nostalgia, grief and home, all rolled into one.

He’d been contending with it a lot lately, because his—for lack of a better word—retirement was still fairly new, and being in one place and not on the road was unusual for him.

But that was a choice he’d made, and one that was taking a bit of time for him to settle into. It had been just over three months, and it still felt…wrong in some ways.

It was easier to pretend that all your demons were dealt with when you just spent a good portion of the time running from them. Made things simple. At least as simple as they could be.

The problem was his demons had done a decent job of catching up to him on the circuit, and that was when he’d decided it was time to move on.

When Cal had fallen…

How could he live with something happening to his mentee? Cal was his best friend and with his guidance had gotten hurt.

No, that had brought him back to a dark, raw place. One he didn’t want to visit again.

That calm before the storm. That bright ray of sunshine revealed to be the headlights of a Mack truck bearing down on him.

He’d read that poem that said nothing gold could stay.

In his experience, it turned out gold was fleeting. And revealed to be fool’s gold on top of it.

Good never lasted.

And it was rarely real, anyway.

He’d been… Well, he hadn’t been thrilled about Cal wanting to come for Thanksgiving, but he felt responsible for the accident so in the end he hadn’t been able to say no.

He pulled his truck up to the front of the farmhouse, and the door opened, three dogs spilling out the front and down the front steps.

“Back, mutts,” he muttered when he got out of the truck, smiling affectionately at the creatures as he bent down and scratched them behind the ears.

He looked up and saw Sammy standing on the top step of the porch, her baby on her hip. Sammy was married to his cousin Ryder now, but she was another member of their ragtag family. She hadn’t lost her parents, but her situation at home, as he understood it, had been unacceptable, and when she was sixteen she’d come to live with them. She’d never left, and she and Ryder had gotten married a year earlier.

Finally, in his opinion.

The two of them had spent way too long dancing around the truth. Not that he could blame them. Nothing in his life had ever made marriage look particularly appealing. His parents…

His parents had been unhappy, slaves to a ranch and their children, to marriage vows they’d said to each other and had always seemed like they might regret.

For just a moment it had seemed like it might all be fixed. For just a moment it had seemed like they’d be okay.

Then it had all been destroyed.

That bright spot of hope swallowed by reality.

After years of unhappiness, his parents had just died.

Jake couldn’t imagine that kind of life.

“How you doing?” he asked.

Sammy shifted the baby from one hip to the other, the little girl reaching out and grabbing her mom’s blond hair. Sammy laughed and unwrapped the chubby fist from her curls. She looked happier than he’d ever seen her before.

He supposed for some people there was something to be said for this life.

God knew Ryder seemed happier.

But then, it was impossible for Ryder to seem more grim. Jake felt pretty guilty about that with the benefit of age and wisdom.

“Great,” Sammy said. “We’ve been seeing so much of you lately. I feel spoiled.”

“Well, that’s good, because it won’t take long for you to just feel sick of me.”

“Never,” Sammy said, coming down the steps and offering him a hug.

Sammy was like that. Effortless, easy affection with people around her.

He admired it, but he’d never much understood it. There was only one kind of touch he was free with. Sex was simple. And being a champion in the world of rodeo meant there was no shortage of buckle bunnies lining up to see if the rumors were true. His bull rides lasted eight seconds, and a ride in his bed lasted the whole night.

He took a lot of pride in the fact that he had staying power. That he gave a damn for the pleasure of the women who passed through his hotel rooms.

But that was as deep as he got.

“Come on in,” Sammy said. “Logan and Rose are already here. Iris and Griffin are on their way.”

It was strange to him that everybody had paired off now. Everybody except for himself, and his brother, Colt, who would rather take a stick between the eyes than settle down.

Jake was confident that would be his brother’s stance.

His brother was still going out hard in the rodeo. As far as Jake knew he wasn’t even interested in coming back to town and settling down the way Jake was, let alone getting married.

He walked into the living room, and noticed all the little changes.

Since Ryder and Sammy had gotten married, the place, which had actually been basically the same in all the years since their parents had died, had gotten a bit of a facelift.

Sammy had added a whole lot of real grown-up touches to it. Pretty things.

It was weird. Weirder that he cared.

Ryder came through from the kitchen and offered a greeting. “Good to see you.”

“You, too. Hey, Sammy,” Jake said. “Would it be all right if my buddy Cal came for Thanksgiving?”

“Sure,” Sammy said. “The more, the merrier.”

He was glad Sammy was thrilled. He was less thrilled. But there were a spare few things on God’s earth he saw as sacred. His friendship with Cal was one of them.

The accident might have been a catalyst for Jake deciding to leave the rodeo, but it was just damned cowardly to then deny his friend’s request to come visit. Why? Because he felt guilty about the fall?

Hell, yeah, he did.

But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about the visit. Though even just being away and out of the game, knowing he was just out of it now for good… There were things he missed. He was looking forward to having a few beers and talking about old times.

“Good,” Jake said.

Eventually, Iris and her new husband arrived, followed by Pansy and her husband, West, and West’s teenage brother, Emmett. West and Pansy had taken over the raising of the kid, since West’s mother wasn’t hugely into the maternal thing. Putting it mildly.

And while everything with his family was good—it always was—there was an indefinable feeling of…change.

Right. Well, you haven’t been here very much, so you don’t have the right to have an opinion about how things have changed.

That thought galled him a little bit.

And it was true enough. He’d been gone, seen to his own affairs all this time, and something that had given him a small measure of comfort was the fact that he could come home at any time and things would be roughly the way that he left them. But not so much anymore.

There were new people. New plates. The house was fuller than it had ever been, but that made it a little bit unrecognizable, too.

It was a whole damn thing.

He finished eating, and hung out for a while.

Then he bid everybody farewell, got in his truck and started on the road back to his ranch.

Settling in Gold Valley.

There was a time when he’d been sure he’d never do that. And as he drove down the familiar highway he had a strange sense of…dread.

He hated that.

He chased dread. The kind of fear that held other people down, he pursued it. He’d spent years riding bulls because he’d figured why not give fate the biggest middle finger of all.

It was the quiet moments that seemed to bring the fear. The still moments. The golden hour, when the sun lit up the world around him and everything looked new. And there would be a moment. A breath. Where peace rested in his soul.

And right on its heels came the hounds of hell.

The arena had stopped it. The pounding of hooves, the danger.

It was just that it had followed him to the arena now so he’d figured he’d take his chances here.

Maybe that had been a mistake.

Too late now.

He drove through town, trying to get a look at how it might seem if he were an outsider. If he was someone who hadn’t grown up here. The brick facades were the kind of thing tourists lost their shit over. But he lost the ability to see them a long time ago.

For him… For him, Gold Valley had just represented everything he lost.

He’d been running when he’d left.

He’d run for a long time. And he’d achieved a hell of a lot.

But whatever he thought he’d feel when he got here… He didn’t.

And so he was trying to see everything with new eyes, like he was a new man, because he felt just so damned much like the old one. And he wasn’t the biggest fan.

Hope Springs always put him in this kind of mood.

So he shrugged it off and started mentally going over the timeline that he had in place for getting his ranch going. His first five horses were coming at the new year.

It was a new challenge. And it reinvigorated him. That was the problem. The rodeo had gotten stale. He’d won everything twice. You didn’t get better than that. He’d done it twice in a row, and he didn’t want to get to the point where he wasn’t winning anymore.

He’d peaked. Basically.

So now he had to go find somewhere else to do that.

That was something, anyway.

It was one reason he’d backed his cousin Iris when she had decided to open her bakery.

He knew all about needing a change.

Maybe that meant he actually was still running.

None of it mattered now, though.

He hadn’t had enough to drink tonight because he’d needed to get his ass home, but he was going to open some whiskey the minute he got in the door.

The place was out about ten miles from town, a nice flat parcel of property with the mountains behind it. The house itself was a big, white farmhouse with a green metal roof. Different to the rustic place at Hope Springs, but he liked it. The driveway was gravel, long and winding, with tall, dense trees on either side of the road.

But when he came through the trees into the clearing where the house was, there was a surprise waiting for him in front of the house.

An old, beat-up pickup was parked there, and he could see a lone figure leaning up against the hood. He parked the truck and got out, making his way over to the figure.

In the darkness, he couldn’t quite make it out, but he had a feeling he knew who it was. Early and unannounced.

Entirely in keeping with what he knew of his friend.

“Cal?”

And two wide, brown eyes looked up at him from beneath the brim of a white cowboy hat, long, glossy brown hair shifting with the motion. “Jake. I’m really glad to see you. Because… I don’t just need a job. I need a husband.”

Excerpted from Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch by Maisey Yates, Copyright © 2021 by Maisey Yates. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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Author Bio

Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she’s writing strong, hard working cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon.

Social Media Links

Author Website

Facebook: @MaiseyYates.Author

Instagram: @maiseyyates

Twitter: @maiseyyates

Goodreads

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BookShop.org

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