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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Tired of billionaires and vampires? Ready for a fairy tale that is sweet hot but still realistic? Try Carly Bloom’s Big, Bad Cowboy. Find out what happens when The Big, Bad Wolf meets Little Red Riding Hood at a costume party. This is a charming book that is well-written and filled with likeable characters and some sexy texting. I think you’ll like it!
I received a free copy of this book, but I happily paid for my pre-order back in July based on the author’s first book: Color Me Crazy by Carol Pavliska. I think you’ll like that one,too! Happy reading, friends!
I don’t read much Western romance but this one completely blew away all of my expectations. This definitely won’t be the last time I read this author!!
I love modern retellings of fairytales and this take on Little Red Riding Hood was original and fantastic. Travis and Maggie were wonderful characters and I was drawn into their story from the very first page. I loved everyone introduced in this book and can’t wait to see what comes next!!
*This is my voluntary review of an advanced reader copy*
I loved this book. It kept me giggling. I really enjoyed the Big Bad wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.
I couldn’t put this book down. The characters are so well developed and made me feel everything. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn’t wait for the next steamy scene. Carly Bloom is an amazing author. Treat yourself with this book
Big Bad Cowboy, the first book in Carly Bloom’s Once Upon a Time in Texas series, is a risque, steamy take on Little Red Riding Hood.
Travis Blake has left the Army and been named guardian of his nephew, Henry. He returns to Happy Trails, the run-down ranch the family owns in Big Verde, a town where everyone knows everyone’s business.. Travis had been a loner growing up and isn’t sure about his place in the community.
Maggie Mackey grew up in the town and runs a landscaping business but is known as everyone’s favorite friend/sister. She is ready to change everyone’s conception of her and attends the town’s masked gala as a sexy Little Red Riding Hood. She unknowingly meets Travis the Wolf, who is nothing like the nerdy young man she knew in high school. Boy, do the sparks fly! They each blossom in their new personas, and their relationship does too.
Thisi is the first book by Carly Bloom that I’ve read, and I really enjoyed the small town dynamics and characters, including Henry, Mrs. Garza, J.D,, Gerome, and the ladies of the book club. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.
I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
I love a fairytale retelling and this one hit all the marks for why I like them. With its original storyline and the intense chemistry between the hero and heroine, I am one happy reader.
I loved that the big bad wolf wasn’t completely revealed right from the start as I thought it might be. The mystery of the wolf and the angst of wondering when he would be revealed kept this upbeat and sexy even as Travis is struggling to solve life issues that are weighing him down. (It’s known to the reader that the hero is the wolf but the heroine is completely in the dark about his identity.)
Travis was an interesting hero. He wasn’t the type who had everything under control. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He was lost as to what to do. There were moments where he was completely human and reacted in a very real manner, even if reading those moments and/or thoughts made me flinch a bit because it’s not something we see our heroes do. All of that made him human and I could identify with him.
Maggie is quite the firecracker and I loved that she was feisty and independent even when inside she felt vulnerable and isolated from what “normal” women have. The Big Bad Wolf was great for her self-esteem and I loved her reactions to his texts.
Add in some great additional characters that helped to generate the humor, that wasn’t lacking to begin with, as well as truth that only a five year old can speak, and this book was elevated into absolutely charming. This was low on sex, high on fun, relatively fast paced and involved a kind of want to be cowboy who knew how to play wolf perfectly.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book provided by NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I’ve read a lot of cringy romance, and Carly manages to hit a sweet spot of totally hot and completely dignified. The characters are real freakin’ people, and their journey throughout the novel was kept me invested both in their connection and their own live trajectory. I’m excited to read the next one!
I was looking forward to reading Big Bad Wolf from the minute it hit my mailbox and I read that blurb. When I saw other bloggers referring to it as a bit of Little Red Riding Hood mixed with a dash of You’ve Got Mail, I was even more excited. Plus, you know, it starts off with a Halloween costume party hookup so it was perfectly seasonal. It was a great debut and fantastic start to a new series. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more from Carly and the small town setting of Big Verde.
Both Maggie and Travis were great characters. She’s the once-ugly-duckling woman who is trying to get her landscape architecture business off the ground. Travis is back in town just long enough to sell off his family farm and pack up his nephew. He can’t get out of Big Verde fast enough. Or so he thinks. Things start to change when he realizes he really could make a home and a life there after all. Especially if Maggie is involved. I, for one, was totally on board with that plan, too. I loved these two together so freaking much. Their chemistry was amazing, their banter was fun and I loved how they got to know each other while working side by side. Of course, there was the little matter of the secret he was keeping from her. You know, that they’d hooked up during the Halloween party. But, I hoped he would come clean and they could move past it.
I also really enjoyed the secondary characters. I’m hoping to get more from quite a few of them as this series continues. One of my favorites, naturally, was Travis’ nephew, Henry. The kid was a trip and he kept me chuckling throughout the book. It helped that he shares a name with my bestie’s son, who is also a bit on the wacky side, so that made him even more realistic. I love a good small town romance and I’ve really come to enjoy cowboys in the last few months. Big Bad Wolf ticked all my boxes and it was a fun, sweet and sexy story with some unsurprising feels along the way. A fantastic debut!
I received a complimentary copy of this book for review consideration. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
FAVORITE QUOTES
“Are you still down with this?”
“I’m not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”
“Real life isn’t a fairytale, Claire.”
“I was shooting for a romantic comedy.”
I miss my moon. The world is dark without her.
YES! I loved this book!
Ms. Bloom is a new to me and debut author and I super happy that I found her. This year, I’ve read a number of cowboy books from Forever and I’ve been VERY happy with all of them.
Ms. Bloom created a book that contains a number of factors that check off my boxes. Cowboy- check.
Small town romance-check an entertaining cast of characters that do not fail to entertain.
Travis and Maggie certainly had chemistry to spare and I enjoyed Travis’s story. He comes back to a town that has no regard for his family and he’s got a long road to hoe. I loved his dedication and how he came to truly love and care for his nephew. Maggie was a fun character to experience and I love her fire. While this book was a love story about Maggie and Travis, for me, it was so much more. Experiencing Maggie and Travis find their way to each was great but I also enjoyed how they grew to understand and grow into their roles within the community.
Great book and a great start to a series that I cannot wait to read more of.
*Copy provided by publisher.
In her debut novel, Carly Bloom spins a sexy, funny, and yes! endearing tale. What I really appreciated were the everyday scenes that pull you into the book: Who hasn’t raised their eyes to heaven after a child couldn’t make it to the bathroom and ends up peeing all over everything? Uh, and let me assure you, the heat from the novel isn’t just because it takes place in Texas! Be sure to grab some ice-cold sweet tea to get you through those parts…
Y’all, Big Bad Cowboy is a special treat for romance readers!
Great story with realistic characters. Maggie and Travis were competing for the same project. Although they were rivals, getting to know each other brought them together. This is a great small town romance and I would recommend it.
Ooh, this book was good. I never know when I go into reading a book from a new to me author about how big of a gamble I’m taking, but this one was a HUGE, happy surprise, because I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of reading this book. It was entertaining and engrossing and I absolutely fell in love with both Travis and Maggie.
Big Bad Cowboy is book one in the Once Upon a Time in Texas series by Carly Bloom. This is my very first book by Carly. This is one of those books that caught my eye while scrolling through my feed. How could I not want to investigate this book further? And I’m so glad that I did!
Travis Blake has been away from his home town of Big Verde, Texas, for twelve years. He’s just left the military eight weeks ago and thought he had everything planned out. Until two weeks after getting out he got a call that changed everything.
Travis’s dad has been gone for awhile now. He was a drunk and a gambler. The only thing he somehow kept ahold of was the ranch. It was left to both Travis and his brother. Only currently his brother is in prison. Travis gave his okay for his brother’s wife and their little boy to live there. Only now she has passed away and Travis’s nephew has no one. He has no experience with kids. So, with the full intention of this being a purely temporary arrangement until he can find someone else that is better equipped to raise a child, and also to sell the ranch, he goes home.
“Henry struck him as being smarter than the average five year old, which was probably the very worst kind of five year old.”
Mary Margaret Mackey, or Maggie as everyone calls her, went to college after high school and got her degree in landscape architecture. Now she’s back in Big Verde building a landscaping business. Her grandmother passed away a year ago and she inherited the ranch. She’s not sure what she eventually wants to do with her grandmother’s beautiful land. But what she ‘does’ want to do is keep the neighbors cows from breaking through the fence and eating all the apples in the orchard.
A chance meeting brings Maggie and Travis together under the guise of disguise at a Halloween party. Inhibitions are forgotten and they share an unforgettable encounter. Travis will soon realize that the woman he can’t forget is to be his work partner in a landscaping job. Not only that, she’s his neighbor. She hasn’t figured out that he is the mysterious man she shared her evening with but he knows!
Maggie and Travis’s relationship goes through so many stages. The one thing that is a constant through it all, though, is chemistry. The texting that goes on between these two is off the charts hot! As Travis is trying to navigate his growing feelings for Maggie, he is also trying to learn how to take care of a grieving five year old little boy and also to save the ranch. What he once thought was a very temporary arrangement is beginning to feel more and more permanent, more like home.
“A month ago, it had been him and Henry against the world. Now he had friends and people who felt like family.”
I have to say that I fell in love with this book. First, I am so in love with this community. They all jumped in to help Travis in any way they could. At first he couldn’t have felt any more alone. There came a point, though, when he realized he wasn’t alone at all, that these people were his friends, his family. Little Henry was so precious and stole my heart. And Travis, well, if you have a soft spot for dirty talking, alpha, sexy cowboys, then he’s your guy. Well, he’s MY guy!
This book was sexy as heck, sweet, fun and just plain fabulous. After just one book, I am calling myself a Carly Bloom fan most definitely. I can’t wait to see what comes next in this series!
There’s nothing like a contemporary western romance to brighten up your day and Big Bad Cowboy was a good one! It’s the story of Travis Blake, former resident of Big Verde that took off 12 years ago and never planned on coming back. Well life had other plans for him when he becomes the custodian of his 5 year old nephew, Henry. Henry’s mother passed away and his father, Travis’ brother is currently in prison. This is not what Travis had planned for his life but he’s doing the best that he can. He’s got a run down old ranch, not much money in the bank, an endless amount of bills and a cranky neighbor that keeps leaving him notes about his cows eating her apples! What Travis doesn’t realize is that fate has plans for him and his neighbor Maggie Mackey is going to be a big part of his life. Maggie is a life long Big Verde resident, landscape architect, and local business owner. These two meet at a Halloween masquerade party not realizing who the other person is. One thing leads to another and sparks fly! Then when they reconnect at a job site, sparks really fly! Big Bad Cowboy has hints of You’ve Got Mail mixed with some sexy Little Red Riding Hood added in! It’s told from dual POV and has a lot of interesting secondary characters. If you’re a fan of Susan Mallery’s Fools Gold series, you’ll enjoy this Texas small town, sexy story that will give you laughs, heat, a bit of angst and wanting to read more about Big Verde!
Big Bad Cowboy is the debut novel for Carly Bloom and I think she hit this one out of the park. This is a small town romance with characters who are flawed and disillusioned but ultimately loyal and dedicated. I loved Travis and how he overcame a tough start in life to become the upstanding man he is. The way he stepped up to care for his nephew just melted my heart. Travis and Maggie have a rocky beginning but as they spend time together they start to see each other differently. Overall this is a wonderful story of family, community, and love filled with hope. I highly recommend this one for everyone.
Big Bad Cowboy by Carly Bloom is book One in the Once Upon a Time in Texas series. This is the story of Travis and Maggie.
Travis has been away from the small town he grew up with for about 12 years. Travis has gotten out of the military about 8 weeks ago. While working to decide what to do next he learns his nephew needs him after the boys mother dies and Travis’s brother is in prison. Travis returns home to the family ranch where his nephew, Henry and his mother had lived. Travis plans to settle Henry somewhere and sell the ranch…but things start happening that make that hard to do. Maggie is working to get her business started and figuring out what to do with the land that her grandmother has left her. Then Travis enters into her life complicating things further for her but at the same time dawning her into new feelings toward him and his nephew.
Overall really enjoyed their story and look forward to more books from this author.
Mystery man at a Halloween ball who rocks her world! Maggie can’t stand Travis but having to work with him and slowly revealing herself to him, he realizes she’s the one whose world was rocked by him behind the mask in a shed. They maintain a mysterious relationship via text but grow closer as they work side by side on a project. What happens when the truth comes out?
Carly Bloom writes a beautiful story of making comebacks and fighting for what you want. Her storytelling will excite you, leave you breathless and warm your heart. Take the chance on this Cowboy Romance, Travis is more of a cowboy in te making!
Carly Bloom is a new to me author and I was excited to read this retelling of a classic fairytale. Big Bad Cowboy (a play on Little Read Riding hood) was a fun, sexy and sweet read. I haven’t read a cowboy romance in a bit and this one did not disappoint. Military vet, Travis Blake, finds himself back in his home town of Big Verde when one phone call changed everything. Maggie Makey, grew up in Big Verde too. She is back in Big Verde after earning a degree in landscape architecture and is starting her landscape business. Through a series of twists and turns, Travis and Maggie find themselves back in each others lives. Gahhh, their chemistry is off the charts! If you love enemies to lovers, small town romance and hot cowboys, then give this read a go!
Big Bad Cowboy is the first in Carly Blooms new Once Upon a Time series. A take on little Red Riding Hood, this novel takes all the best parts of the fairy tale and updates them for a modern telling. Travis and Maggie start out as rivals, but when they are given the opportunity to be anonymous they realize they have more in common than they think. This cowboy meets fairy tale is a fun new twist. I’m looking forward to the next books in this series.
I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this novel.
I am not sure where to begin with this review. I am not a huge fan of this book at all, I felt like in the beginning Maggie was this independent store owner who had it all together the in the next moment she was whiney and annoying “I’m a women” and I should get special treatment. I like Travis a little but they both came off as victims instead of one being a heroine. I loved, Claire, Henry, Lupe, JD and Bubba and Gerome they all seemed like the hero’s in this book to me. I loved how from one page to the next you never knew what was going to be coming out of Henry’s mouth it made for interesting read he sure was a pistol throughout. Just a heads up to all those readers out there this book is a totally adult read and contains a ton of adult language and scenes, I would say in my opinion its an erotic style book, that being said not suitable for all ages. I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley. I was under no obligation to post a review and have given my honest opinion.