Fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips will delight (Publishers Weekly) in this “sexy, smart” (Lori Wilde, New York Times bestselling author) western romance about a cowboy who comes home to save his ranch, and finds a family along the way. One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Romances of 2018! After one too many heartbreaks, Travis Blake hung up his cowboy hat and put Big Verde, Texas, behind him. But … Big Verde, Texas, behind him. But when he gets the call that his young nephew needs him, he knows he has to return home. His plan is to sell the family ranch and hightail it back to Austin, but there’s a small problem: the one person who stands in his way is the one person he can’t resist. Maggie is pretty sure she hates Travis Blake. He’s irritating, he’s destroying her business, and . . . and he’s just so frickin’ attractive. But when they’re forced to work together, Maggie discovers that the Most Annoying Man in the World is more than he seems. He’s sweet with his nephew, he helps out in the community, and he makes her heart flutter. Maggie doesn’t want to risk everything on a man who wants to leave, but what if she can convince this wayward cowboy to stay? “Big Bad Cowboy is sweet and sexy!” — New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan What readers are saying about Big Bad Cowboy… “I fell in love with this book…if you have a soft spot for dirty talking, alpha, sexy cowboys, then [Travisher heart flutter. Maggie doesn’t want to risk everything on a man who wants to leave, but what if she can convince this wayward cowboy to stay? “Big Bad Cowboy is sweet and sexy!” — New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan What readers are saying about Big Bad Cowboy… “I fell in love with this book…if you have a soft spot for dirty talking, alpha, sexy cowboys, then [Travisher heart flutter. Maggie doesn’t want to risk everything on a man who wants to leave, but what if she can convince this wayward cowboy to stay? “Big Bad Cowboy is sweet and sexy!” — New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan What readers are saying about Big Bad Cowboy… “I fell in love with this book…if you have a soft spot for dirty talking, alpha, sexy cowboys, then [Travisher heart flutter. Maggie doesn’t want to risk everything on a man who wants to leave, but what if she can convince this wayward cowboy to stay? “Big Bad Cowboy is sweet and sexy!” — New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan What readers are saying about Big Bad Cowboy… “I fell in love with this book…if you have a soft spot for dirty talking, alpha, sexy cowboys, then [Travis] is your guy.” “With its original storyline and the intense chemistry between the hero and heroine, I am one happy reader.” “Big Bad Cowboy is an amazingly good book.” “Big Bad Cowboy is a delightful western romance that is impressive on all fronts.” “Serious, funny, sexy, and just the right amount of angst.”
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Bloom’s BIG BAD COWBOY is sweet and naughty, sexy and heartwarming, a thoroughly enjoyable – and a little bit wicked – read.
After a painful childhood full of hurt and disappointment at the hands of an alcoholic father, Travis Blake left Big Verde, Texas and joined the Army. Now his tour of service is complete and with his sister-in-law’s death and his twin brother’s incarceration, Travis must return to care for his nephew. He has a job waiting back in Austin, he just needs to sell the family’s rundown ranch and get out of there. Only, there are unforeseen obstacles to his plans and a feisty neighbor he’s loath to leave.
Maggie Mackey can’t stand Travis. He’s trying to ruin her landscaping business, his cows are constantly destroying her apple orchard, and he’s much too attractive. When they have to work together on a landscape project, Maggie begins to realize Travis is more than she first thought. He’s a doting parent to his nephew, devoted to helping the community, and he causes her to feel all too many flutters. Maggie doesn’t want to chance being hurt by a man who’s not planning to stay, but maybe she can give him a reason to change his mind about leaving.
It took me quite a while to really get into this book, but I wound up really liking it. The deception aspect here went on a bit too long, but Travis was an excellent hero, the perfect combination of strong and dominant with sweet and sensitive. He was struggling so much and had no idea how to ask for help, never having had anyone he could rely on, and it made him so relatable and endearing. This also meant Maggie was at times taking care of Travis and that about face from the usual really worked here. I loved the side characters and the humor they provided. Maggie did get on my nerves sometimes with her snappishness and the assumptions she made toward Travis, but this did improve as she got to know him, and I liked that she was willing to listen to him when he apologized. I would’ve liked a bit more steam here and more time with Maggie and Travis together on the page and free of any secrets between them. Overall, I liked these two as a couple, especially Travis as a hard-working hero who wasn’t a man-whore and who had somewhat of an ugly duckling to swan transformation. I enjoyed this story and these characters left me with a nice warm, fuzzy feeling at the end.
Blog link: https://mustreadalltheromance.blogspot.com/2021/05/big-bad-cowboy-by-carly-bloom-review.html
When I was told this book (1) opened with a Halloween costume party, (2) was a Little Red Riding Hood retelling, (3) basically a sexier You’ve Got Mail, (4) had cowboys (obvi), (5) and was my fellow readers’ favorite cowboy romance, I knew I had to try it! And it did not disappoint! I’m a sucker for a good costume party, and while I’m not sure how “cowboy” this “cowboy” romance is, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will DEFINITELY be reading the rest of the series. There’s a couple of plot holes (How does Maggie not recognize his voice? How come Maggie doesn’t wonder how he knew where the shed was?), but they didn’t detract from the story too much. I would definitely recommend this one, especially for those looking for an introduction to cowboy romances, as it’s basically just a rom cow with Stetsons.
5 stars – 9/10
I laughed out loud at this wonderful book about a cowboy and his Little Red Riding Hood, the Texas Hill Country town that the author accurately depicted and the other Texans who lived there. A riot!
4.5/5 stars!
This book is a second-chance cowboy romance featuring two characters that were introduced in the first book of the series. The chemistry between the couple is just too hot to not take a chance again as the two reconnected during a troubling time for the heroine’s family. Also, the hero has internal struggles to overcome to reach his happily-ever-after with the heroine. Overall, this is a solid continuation of the series.
What I liked about this book the most is the author’s “voice” or writing style. It truly emanates throughout the books, and I can’t wait to read more. I look forward to the author’s bright future in her writing journey.
***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.***
Smoking hot, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny!
Big Bad Cowboy is an amusing, heartwarming tale that takes us to Big Verde, Texas and into the life of the hardworking, fiery Maggie as she juggles a demanding career, the loss of her beloved grandmother, texting with a mysterious, yet handsome stranger, and sparring with her infuriatingly sexy neighbour, Travis Blake.
The writing is witty and crisp. The characterization is spot on with a cast of characters that are fun-loving, supportive, and endearing. And the plot is an enchanting blend of heart, humour, tender moments, family, friendship, tension, attraction, chemistry, snappy dialogue, shameless flirting, community spirit, and sizzling romance.
Overall, Big Bad Cowboy is a humorous, spicy, highly addictive novel by Bloom that’s a wonderful addition to the Once Upon a Time in Texas series and a true guilty pleasure.
Carly Bloom is officially my jam! I loved Big Bad Cowboy! It was so entertaining with amazing wit and humorous dialogue. It was flirty and steamy and outright fun to read. I loved Travis and Maggie so much and couldn’t get enough of them!
This is the sexiest re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood that I have read and I LOVED it! In Big Bad Cowboy, Travis Blake has returned to Big Verde, Texas to take care of his nephew Henry. Travis had just gotten out of the army and was planning on moving to Austin when he got back, but now his plans have had to change.
Travis hasn’t had much experience running his family’s ranch and instead is relying on other forms of income taking on a few landscaping jobs to make ends meet. Maggie Mackey runs Petal Pushers a landscape and garden business in Big Verde and now she has competition in the form of one Travis Blake. Maggie doesn’t like him just on principle.
When Maggie and Travis end up having to work together on a project together sparks fly. I loved their initial hate towards one another and how that slowly evolved into friendship. The witty banter between Travis and Maggie was so great and the chemistry was undeniable. The Halloween party and the Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf scenes were hot hot hot and I loved each and every one of them!
One of the best parts of this book was the relationship that Travis had with his nephew Henry. A lot of times I feel like when there is a romance with a single dad or father figure, I don’t always connect with the child in the scenario. But in this case, Henry was one of my favorite characters. His relationship with Travis was so real and I appreciate that so much in a romance novel. The parts with Travis and Henry always had me laughing or my heart catching.
I honestly loved every character in Big Verde and can’t wait to read more books set in this town! Thank you Carly Bloom for writing such a great book!
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.
This book has it all! It is in part funny, quirky, kind. sweet, tender, realistic, sexy, and incredibly HOT!! Why oh why can’t there be men like Travis in real life?? He is the epitome of what every modern woman is looking for! There are so many side-splitting lol moments that I just had to keep reading to see what antics Travis and Maggie were going to be up to next! I loved not only the main characters but each secondary character was so well portrayed that I felt that I could meet them in real life and immediately feel like I already knew them well. I have got to find more of Ms. Bloom’s work that has already been published and watch for any future books she will be releasing!
A cute little enemies to lovers romance, Travis and Maggie’s meet cute was to die for!
Travis is trying to figure out how to raise a nephew he never asked for, save the ranch his father bought with gambling winnings, and fall in love with the neighbor threatening to poison his cattle. Meanwhile Maggie wants everyone to notice the grown up she’s become, and how to continue to play with her wolf while she’s falling in love with the man next door.
A lot of suspenseful scenes throughout Carly Blooms Big Bad Cowboy, with an extra heaping spoonful of steamy, sexy times. This book was worth way more than 5 stars!
This was a supremely delicious ride with a deft sense of humor that manages to subvert the cowboy trope. Travis and Maggie meet at a Halloween party (dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf!) and don’t realize they’re business rivals until after sexy shenanigans have ensued. To take things up a notch: Travis figures out Maggie was his Little Red Riding Hood but doesn’t tell her he was the Big Bad Wolf. Thanks to Maggie’s best friend, they have each other’s phone number and so Little Red and her Wolf text (or sext, as it were) on the side while Travis and Maggie are getting to know each other better each day. I don’t always like situations like this. You know it’s going to end badly and it’s just a matter of when but Bloom handled this beautifully. There’s such great character growth across the story. Travis has to stop ignoring his problems. I loved watching him take care of his nephew and the way he figured out what kind of future he wanted to have. As a female landscape architect, Maggie constantly has to prove herself in a male-dominated field and I loved how the story explored this dynamic. She’s always been seen as “one of the guys” and I loved watching her bloom under Travis’s attention. This was an absolute delight from start to finish!
This is a new to me author who pulled me from page one. This series is off to a great start. The chemistry between the hero and heroine was insane. This is not your typical romance. There were so many moments I laughed as well as steamy moments. This was kinda a retelling of The Red Riding Hood and I loved it. Who doesn’t like a good fairy tale that has been retold for adults? I enjoyed every minute of this book and can’t wait for the next book in the series.
Truly enjoyed this new writer! Fun read with realistic characters and my favorite a HEA. Can’t wait to read more from her! I think I have to wait till Spring 2019?
Fun and sexy take on the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. Couldn’t put it down!
Things I loved about Big Bad Cowboy: hot yet unlikely cowboy; strong, successful shero; small-town feel; well-characterized supporting cast; sexting (oh, have mercy, the sexting); cute yet imperfect kid.
Things I did not love about Big Bad Cowboy: it’s over.
Seriously, this was a phenomenal read. It was well-written, perfectly paced, and Carly Bloom laid substantial groundwork in building the universe for her series “Once Upon a Time in Texas.” I cannot wait for the release of Book 2.
In the meantime, I am definitely adding Color Me Crazy (Bloom’s first novel, which was published under the name Carol Pavliska) to my TBR list.
Once Upon a Time in Texas #1, A good Autumn read that takes place just before Halloween and ends with a Christmas epilogue. I adored this book! Maggie and Travis meet at a Halloween costume party, Maggie dressed as slutty Red Riding Hood and Travis as a Wolf. Instant sexual chemistry sparked between them they snuck off together not knowing each others real names and for Maggie not knowing what her Big Bad Wolf actually looked like only to part quickly after but not before Maggie’s best friend slipped Maggies’s number on to his phone. Travis is fresh out of the military and stuck in his hometown taking care of his nephew, Henry, whose mother just died of cancer and Travis’ worthless brother is in jail, again. He’s trying to earn money the best way he knows how, especially since the property taxes on his Dad’s, now his, ranch are overdue. Maggie is the owner and operator of her own business, Petal Pushers, with her landscaping degree she made a name for herself, now she views Travis as competition, and really annoying, and too sexy for his own good. They wind up getting hired for the same job but for different reasons and the more time Maggie spends with Travis she realises how wrong she was about him.
Travis recognizes Maggie as Red Riding Hood right away but because he was the one wearing the mask Maggie doesn’t recognize him. With her number in his phone he makes contact. Through text messages they flirt and sext and Travis falls in love. Maggie is torn between the her Big Bad Wolf and Travis, and what will she do when she realizes they are one in the same. Between the adorable Henry, the loveable Mrs. Garza (I want one of her) and Maggie’s two best friends Claire and JD the secondary cast of characters is just as entertaining as Maggie and Travis. I really did like everything about his book. Overall, it ends up being such a heartwarming story with an endearing cast of characters.
This is a sexy, fun, feminist read and I recommend it! There’s a lot to love in it. The two main characters are likable and compelling, and their chemistry sizzles. There are also subtle redressings of typical toxic masculinity in here which is great to see, especially in a “cowboy” book where often those things are not necessarily acknowledged at all as problematic.
It’s also fun to see how Carly is able to do this while still playing with the ideas of dominance and submission in the sex lives of the two main characters. This is not Fifty Shades of Gray AT ALL, but the spiciness does have a little bit of a dominance and submission vibe to it, jokingly at times, and Carly balances it with the main character Maggie’s enjoyment of a little submission in bed with her dominance and agency out of the bedroom, which I liked. It’s worth the read!
Oh my gosh, what did I just read? Wow. I’m finding it kind of hard to rate. The best I can say is that I liked it with some reservations. One thing right off the top of my head is that I loved the humor. I laughed out loud more than once. Part of the reservations come from off the charts sexting and sex on the brain “talk”. Some of it was fine but it kind of felt that at times it was a bit too much. Definitely a story for adults. The actual story was pretty good though, there were several stories within the main one.
What a wild way that the two of the main characters met. It was also kind of funny at times and made me smile more than once. It also kind of makes up for the awkward section at the beginning between Maggie and her “friend” JD. The awkward part came in when she tries to make a move on him because of her crush on him and he only saw her as one of the guys and that’s all he wants. Like I said, awkward.
This story did have good main characters and that included Henry, the nephew of Travis Blake. Henry throws up challenges to Travis that really makes him feel like he’s in over his head but he’s doing the best he can. Henry as a five real old kid, was pretty well drawn I thought. Typical five year old boy, with an tell it like it is mouth. It didn’t take long to start rooting for Travis to catch a break though. He had so many things on his plate, that just kept piling up. He also had a lousy childhood that was shown pretty well and you just wanted to see him win a few. But he does start picking up friends as he goes through his challenges and that was good to see. He didn’t know it but a lot of people in the town were rooting for him too. His housekeeper, babysitter was one of those. Mrs. Garza (Lupe) was only supposed to look after Henry but she did so much more, every chance she got. She basically “adopted him”. Well, it was more like she adopted them both as her family. It was sweet to watch, even when she got tough with Travis about accepting help.
Might Mack, was the nickname that Maggie had picked up. That was funny because what she lacked in size, she made up in determination and grit. More than once Travis alludes to how tiny she is.
The secondary people in the story were so good too. There really are quite a few. Bubba, JD, Claire (Maggie’s BFF) just to name a few. Claire adds a lot of color, flair and fun to the antics in this book. Her father Jerome Kowalski shows up a few times and adds a big twist towards the end of the book.
I loved the Epilogue. Happy Trails (Ranch) is blooming and we get to see more of the good things that are happening to and for Maggie, Travis, Henry and Lupe. Some dreams come true and the ranch isn’t the only thing blooming there. H.E.A. all the way around. Oops, I just realized I did an unintended pun when I spoke about all the blooming going on and just remembered the author’s last name.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book via Netgalley and these are my honest thoughts about it.
I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review. Big Bad Cowboy was such a fun read. The characters have true, well-presented personalities that aren’t always predictable, but always ring true. The story is endearing and the setting a perfect fit. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants an escape to the Texas Hill Country with a great cast of friends.
As much as I love cowboys, I love cowboys raising kids that aren’t their own even more! Travis is incredible! And as much as I’d read this book just for him, I have to say, I was rooting for Maggie so much, it actually tipped me over to her side before they became one team. If you like hot cowboys (who doesn’t?) and strong women (again, who doesn’t?), take a few hours for yourself and read this great book!
I did receive an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review, but I also bought the book.