Pastry chef, Cary Crockett, is on the run. Pursued by a loan shark bent on retrieving gambling debts owed him by her deadbeat ex-boyfriend, she finds the perfect hiding place at the remote Circle W Ranch. More at home with city life, cupcakes and croissants than beef, beans and bacon, she has to convince ranch owner Micah West she’s up to the job of feeding his hired hands. The overwhelming … attraction she feels toward him was nowhere in the job description.
Micah West has a big problem. The camp-cook on his central Oregon ranch has up and quit without notice, and his crew of hungry cowboys is about to mutiny. He agrees to hire Cary on a temporary basis, just until he finds the right man to fill the job. Maintaining a hands-off policy toward his sexy new cook becomes tougher than managing a herd of disgruntled wranglers.
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What a great western romance?
Baker meets the cowboy Micah. She talks him into hiring her on a temporary basis on a ranch in Oregon. She doesn’t expect to fall for Micah or his young daughter. Then his ex-wife shows up. And she has a secret. Some bad guys are after her.
It drives me more than a little bit batty when I come to the end of a book I thought I was going to be head over high heels for, and I’m left feeling just “meh”. There are parts of this story I really enjoyed: Willa Wild is a force of nature and by far the best part of the story. The rest didn’t excite me the way I had hoped it would. I’m no longer a big fan of other-woman drama and this story has it in spades – way more than the book needs. The missing, Missionary mother and abandoned daughter dynamic reminds me of a Susan Elizabeth Phillips title I’ve read, and since I’m not a fan of most of her work, that opinion rubbed off a bit on this book. The nebulous bad guys lurking in the shadows don’t really manifest into anything truly frightening which meant I couldn’t connect with Cary’s terror. In fact, I wasn’t able to connect with most of the emotions in this book. The story didn’t move me the way I thought it would, bus it was still an enjoyable read.
This was a delightful book to read. I thoroughly enjoyed this romance. I love strong cowboys. Top it off with him being a single dad, swoon. I absolutely adored little Willa Wild. I look forward to reading this rest of this series. This is a strong series opener. The book is written with dual POVs, which is a favorite of mine. It really helps me to identify with the characters. I also enjoyed Marlene’s POV as well. I couldn’t put this down. The story was so wonderfully written, it was enchanting.
If you love cowboy, single-dad romances, then you will definitely enjoy this one.
KU. 2.5 Stars. This was barely an OK read. I managed to finish it but then sat there like “what just happened?”. It was unfortunately underdeveloped. More than just an outline, but like someone randomly drew plot points out of a jar and then wrote a few sentences. Then just kept pulling a new “conflict” and adding it in as they went along.
Cary is on the run from some bad guy who her ex owes money to and ends up in a tiny town. Micah is at the local diner trying to hire a cook for his ranch. Trope achieved.
Cary can’t cook (she’s a baker), there’s a cute kid, a foreman, crazy ex-wife, jealous store owner, weird bank manager, abandoned puppy, affronted diner owner, kidnapping plot, best friend…. Speaking of weird bank manager; there’s this whole attempt at *something* having to do with the bank, signing paperwork, having Micah come in several times and the papers not being ready and … it. is. never. resolved. I still have no clue what the author was getting at???
This was also basically inta-Love ~ except it wasn’t even love. The MCs were attracted to each other but they really didn’t spend any time getting to know each other or dating. Basically they spent all their time dealing with aforementioned “conflicts”. They kissed a few time. Cary says Micah can’t kiss her because she’s married and then they go into town to buy groceries and he’s holding her hand? I think the whole thing took place over 2 or 3 weeks.
Micah’s daughter, Willa Wild, was probably the only fully developed, consistent character in this whole thing.
I borrowed the box set via KU. I’m returning it after only finishing this story and I doubt I’ll be checking out anything by this author again.
This a nice quick read. I was drawn to this book because Cary is a pastry chef and Micah is a single dad. Plus it doesn’t hurt that he’s a yummy cowboy too. Micah’s daughter is adorable. I loved the scenes between her and Cary. Really sweet moments. Sometimes life throws you some curve balls and you just have to roll with it. That’s definitely what Cary has to do. I got sucked into the story right away. The characters were great and entertaining.
This is a good quick, fun, sexy read with interesting sexy cowboy story with a happy ever after
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book for Hidden Gems