Love was the last thing on this untamed cowboy’s mind…until she stole his heart away. Cleo Delaney will do anything to keep her promise and raise her best friend’s sons–even if it means telling a little white lie to the state to keep them. So Cleo turns to the only person she can trust to help her–her first love, Judd Laramie. If he fosters the three young brothers in name only, she’ll do … she’ll do all the heavy lifting. It’s a foolproof plan…but she never imagined that the feelings they once shared would return. With a vengeance.
Texas deputy Judd Laramie is stunned by Cleo’s request. Being a dad–even on paper–is the last thing this cowboy needs right now. But no one knows better than Judd how flawed the foster system is and how much these brothers need Cleo’s protective love. What starts as a simple lie becomes so much more, and soon it’s clear Judd needs Cleo and the family they’ve created as much as they need him. Now he’ll do whatever it takes to win Cleo’s heart and claim the future they all deserve.
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It’s not a story that delights in the easy way to do practically anything, but really, SUCH IS LIFE, and yes, I read fiction to step away from reality, but it doesn’t mean that a dose of it in the story is any less enjoyable. Take this one for example. I have the utmost respect for Judd’s initial reaction to Cleo’s request. He has issues, he knows his limits, and he doesn’t want to inflict them on innocents…not that things are going were going to work out that way initially or in the foreseeable long run, but still…and you know there is that whole man-of-the-law bit. A man that admits when he’s in over his head though, GOLDEN! Same for Cleo though…she was asked something from the heart of a dear friend, but left without the means to make it happen. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, life took an unexpected and sudden turn, but it didn’t make it any less of a challenge to take care of the loved ones left behind…and Cleo is DEFINITELY a woman of her word. The highs and lows they both experience, alongside the cast of zany and lovable characters, makes this more than a story of second chances for all involved, but a testament of sorts to family being more than blood…family being the people we choose to let into our lives and our hearts.
All in all, a delightful read that hits all the right heartstrings, while giving us a story to remember.
Recommended for fans of the author as well as Contemporary Romance fans that love a heavier story with their weekend reading flirtation.
**copy received for review; opinions are my own
This enjoyable read is filled with emotions and some deep issues. The well crafted story pulls you in and has fully invested in the outcome. I liked Cleo a lot and I hated what she was going through. I felt for Judd but many of his actions (or inactions) really annoyed me. A very emotional read.
Cleo Delaney’s best friend and single mother of three boys, Miranda Morrelli, has died and her sons have been placed with their drunken and abusive grandmother, Lavinia Mercer. Miranda wanted Cleo to raise her boys for her but the paperwork granting guardianship to Cleo didn’t get done in time. Cleo needs a plan to rescue the boys, Beckham, Issac and Leo. Child Protective Services won’t accept her for fostering for a couple of reasons. Her plan…. get Deputy Judd Laramie to apply to foster the boys, in name only, while she actually raises them. When she brings Judd to Lavinia’s house they find a great mess. Shortly after their visit the boys run away. Judd finds them and takes them to the ER in Coldwater to get documentation of how Lavinia physically abused them. CPS is involved and there will be all kinds of hoops to jump through so Cleo can raise the boys she loves. Will Judd help? Will this plan work?
Hot Texas Sunrise by Delores Fossen is the second book in her Coldwater Texas series. This story encompasses a great sense of love and family. As discovered in the first book in the series the Laramie brothers grew up in the foster system and had some truly rough times until all four brothers were placed together with Buck McCall. The depth of the damage and hurt when a foster placement goes wrong is brought home with the backstory of the Laramies. No one wants the three Morrelli brothers to face lots of difficulties. How this author writes about the determination of Cleo Delany to keep the boys she loves is inspirational. The depth of the character development is impressive and the storyline was so compelling that I just had to see how the book ended all in one sitting. Anyone looking for a story with depth and lots of loving character interactions will enjoy this book.
I love Delores Fossen, romatic and fun to read.
Good second chance romance that is full of love, family, hope, and fear. Cleo’s best friend passed away, leaving her three boys to Cleo to raise. Unfortunately, the official paperwork didn’t get done before Miranda died, putting the three boys in the custody of their drunken, abusive grandmother. Cleo wants to foster them, but has some strikes against her – mainly that she’s had some trouble with the law and owns a bar. To get around the problem, she contacts fellow foster survivor and friend Judd to ask him to go on the record as their foster parent while she does the actual work.
Judd is stunned by Cleo’s proposal. While he is empathetic to the boys’ plight, having had a truly horrifying experience in the system, he’s not ready to take on that responsibility. His memories sent him down a dark path, one he used alcohol to deal with. He’s been sober for a year, but every day is a struggle and he doesn’t think he can handle the extra stress.
The central theme of this book is getting the boys away from their grandmother and in a loving home. The relationship between Cleo and Judd takes a bit of a backseat, but is bolstered by their joint involvement in protecting the boys. Though I understood his reasons, I was disappointed in Judd’s refusal. I thought that he was a lot stronger than he and others believed he was. I liked how oldest brother Kace stepped in to fill the breach and how the rest of the family also became part of the solution. I did like that Judd didn’t avoid involvement. There are some heartbreaking scenes of him with the oldest boy, Beckham. Judd sees a lot of himself in Beckham and develops a pretty solid connection with him. The path to saving the boys does not run smoothly. The grandmother is a piece of work. She doesn’t want the boys herself, she just wants to be sure that Cleo doesn’t get them. There is also a social worker who has an agenda of her own and is not as impartial as she ought to be. I liked seeing the effect that the love of the whole Laramie family had on Beckham, Isaac, and Leo. However, there were still obstacles to overcome, including a chance that they would lose the boys completely. The scene at the end with the social worker was a nail-biter with an ending that had an unexpected twist to it.
I enjoyed the development of the relationship between Judd and Cleo. The chemistry between them dates back to when they were teenagers and both fostered with Buck. Even though they haven’t seen much of each other in the intervening years, the pull between them is still strong. Judd doesn’t do commitment, however, as he has so many issues he doesn’t want to inflict on anyone else. As he and Cleo are thrown together more frequently, the more difficult it is to keep their hands off each other, until they finally give in. It’s easy to see that their feelings for each other deepen, as each one becomes more concerned with how things affect the other one than in protecting themselves. I felt bad for Cleo, who kept apologizing to Judd for getting him involved, and for Judd, who felt guilty because he felt like he was letting her down. I felt like both of them needed a good shove to get them headed in the right direction. Those shoves came about in unexpected ways, making for a very satisfying ending.
The secondary characters added to the fun and feelings of the story. Beckham, Isaac, and Leo were the most important of these. The misery and pain they endured made my heart ache for them. Little Leo was adorable, and I loved seeing Isaac and his joy at helping Rosy in the kitchen. But my favorite brother was Beckham. He is so intent on protecting his brothers, even though it’s clear that he’s just as scared as they are. I liked the way that he connected with Judd and began to lose a little of his distrust of adults. I hope to see more of him in the upcoming books. Buck and Rosy were fantastic with their willingness to do whatever needed to help make a home for the boys. I still get a little creeped out by Rosy’s taxidermy efforts. Billy the armadillo is still a presence, plus there’s a funny scene involving some frogs. I also loved Judd’s sponsor. She is quite a character, and I laughed out loud at her safe words and distraction objects. I liked seeing more of Judd’s brothers, Kace and Nico, and can’t wait to read their stories.
Hot Texas Sunrise is the second book in Delores Fossen’s Coldwater Texas series, and the second book in the series I’ve read and reviewed, but it certainly can be read as a standalone novel. First, the title of this novel had absolutely nothing to do with the content of this novel whatsoever or the serious issues with which it deals, and while I loved that Ms. Fossen took a good hard look at alcoholism as well as the realities of the foster care system and its lifelong, negative effects on some of the children placed into the system and fostered by people who should never be allowed to be foster parents, I felt that the romance part of this second chance at love story gave romance short-shrift, and seemed to confuse lust with love, which felt somewhat contrived. Additionally, the the happily-ever-ending was far to abrupt and desperately in need of an epilogue, which is why I was unable to give this novel more than a 3.5 star rating.
The story centers on Cleo, herself a product of the foster care system, Deputy Judd Laramie and his brothers, who all met while growing up in the system, and finally ending up at a good foster home, but as for the Laramie brothers, especially Judd, the nightmares and PTSD caused by his previous placements at dreadful and appallingly violent and abusive foster homes left its scars on his soul, and eventually led him to drown his nightmares and memories in a whiskey bottle for over a decade, and, as the novel opens, he’s managed to stay sober for one year, but as is true for most alcoholics, they’re lucky if they can manage to stay sober one day at a time.
Suddenly, into his life walks Cleo Delaney, who shared his foster home at the ranch for several years, and whom he deflowered at her request when she was just 16. She knows all about his issues with alcohol, but she’s desperately in need of his help. Cleo’s best friend, Miranda, was diagnosed with cancer, and died within weeks of that diagnosis, intending to leave her 4 sons to Cleo, but the paperwork was never signed or notarized. The four boys are currently living with their only other relative, their alcoholic and abusive grandmother, Lavinia, and they have the bruises to prove it, and Cleo wants them out of her clutches before she can do more harm to the boys or place them in the foster care system. Cleo knows that her having a juvenile record, as well as an arrest at 18, and currently owning a bar would be huge stumbling blocks in her path to foster her best friend’s children, so she’s there to ask Judd if he could possibly be their foster father in name only, but he’s unwilling to step in–fearing it might affect his sobriety. Luckily, Buck and Rosy, who own the ranch, and Judd’s brother, Kace, open their hearts to these boys, and everyone in their circle of friends is willing to pitch in and help raise them in a loving environment, but Lavinia wants them back (heaven knows why) and isn’t above making trouble, especially for Cleo, whom she hates for no reason I was able to discern.
To further complicate matters, Beckham, the eldest brother is a runner, and he knows that if fostered out, he and his brothers will be separated. That’s exactly what happened to Judd, whose 2 younger brothers were so badly beaten at the foster home they were sent to that they nearly died–something for which he still feels guilty about but which he couldn’t possibly have changed. It also seems that in the 17 years since Judd last saw Cleo, the lust he felt for her and the lust she felt for him have never gone away, and while they are back together again, these two can’t keep their hands off one another, although Judd wants recreational sex only (rec sex), not a relationship, and Cleo is willing to comply. While I love a second chance at romance story, this wasn’t really it–while the steamy scenes were fine, there was no romance involved, and Judd castigates himself immediately after each encounter, and still wants nothing to do with the orphaned boys, now living with his foster father, Buck and his brother Kace.
There are some lighter moments in this novel too. The youngest of the four orphans is Little Leo, a total charmer, and Judd’s AA sponsor, Mercy, who is a hoot and a half. It was hard not to fall in love with these 4 boys, and Beckham’s protectiveness of his siblings, as well as all the other characters at the ranch, and despite the rec sex between Judd and Cleo, at no time was the welfare of those 4 boys put on the back burner. Slowly, Judd and Beckham become closer because Judd sees himself in Beckham, and doesn’t want to see him experience what Judd and his brothers experienced in foster care. Cleo keeps trying to get Judd involved in their care, but he still doesn’t want the pressures of parenthood, which might possibly send him back to the bottle.
There are plenty of triggers in this novel, abandonment, domestic abuse, child abuse and neglect feature prominently, but all are handled with sincere kindness and concern. There is also graphic sex, so I’d place this novel in the adults only category. While it was hard not to feel sympathy for the sexy, tortured, self-doubting, and closed off Judd Laramie, his unwillingness to open his heart to the 4 boys, and to Cleo, made him somewhat less of a sympathetic character than I had hoped he would be. Yes, there’s an HEA ending in the last few pages of this novel, but as I stated at the outset, it was far too rushed and incomplete, and far less emotionally satisfying than it might have been, and frankly, I was rather disappointed by it. While the novel had it’s problems, kudos to Ms. Fossen for tackling such a serious and real issue as the downside of the foster care system and the children stuck in nightmarish foster homes.
I voluntarily read an advanced reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
All I can say is Judd Laramie did not disappoint. 😉 What a great, complex, emotionally conflicted hero. A recovering alcoholic, Judd the Stud thinks avoiding emotional entanglements is the way to endure. Bless his big, rough-around-the-edges heart–he cares more about the heroine, Cleo, and her three unofficial foster children than he even knows. But conquering past demons to accept the love and family that’s right there in front of him is a realistic struggle for this hero.
Yes, I laughed at some of the humor in the book. I teared up a couple of times, too.
Yes, there’s a steamy connection between Judd and Cleo, as they rekindle a teenage romance several years later.
Yes, he’s the deputy you want showing up to save the day.
Yes, he’s the father those three troubled boys need.
Book 2 in Delores Fossen’s Coldwater, TX novels from HQN.
Loved it!
This is a second chance romance that will tug at your heartstrings. Cleo Delaney and Judd Laramie have a history. Cleo is in a tough spot and needs Judd’s help in fostering three boys. Unfortunately, Cleo has a few strikes against her so she can’t foster her friend’s boys. Judd also has an issue that he has to work through as well. Cleo, Judd and Judd’s family work very hard to keep the boys despite all of the obstacles facing them. This story touches on many issues as well; alcoholism, foster care, child abuse, mistakes made in youth, and adoption. Ms Fossen touches on all of these topics throughout the story. She also shows that there is room for forgiveness in order to achieve your happily ever after. Enjoyed this story.
Spicy, sexy, and heartfelt!
Hot Texas Sunrise is a lighthearted, second-chance romance between the dedicated, selfless Cleo who’s determined to do whatever it takes to protect her best friend’s orphaned children and the conscientious, handsome Judd who’s got enough on his plate just battling his own demons from the past.
The prose is smooth and fluid. The characters are engaging, scarred, well-drawn, and endearing. And the plot is an affecting tale full of family, secrets, abuse, deception, hilarious hijinks, witty banter, palpable chemistry, steamy romance, as well as a little insight into the limitations, deficiencies, maltreatment, neglect, and odd success story of the foster care system.
Overall, Hot Texas Sunrise is a warm, charming, entertaining read that I feel has just the right amount of emotion, angst, drama, passion, and cowboys to make this an excellent choice for those who love contemporary, western romance.
There are few authors who can get me as enamored with a story as Delores Fossen does with her excellent, engaging storytelling talent and her way to use the English language. And Hot Texas Sunrise — I just loved it, every word, scene and moment of it as I was simultaneously sobbing, laughing, swooning and falling in love.
Prepare yourself for an emotional ride that will pull all the feels into the surface.
Even with the mighty serious subjects of child neglect, abuse, and foster care challenges, and alcoholism, through the tale, there is a tiny line of hope following each challenge that the life throws at the brothers. There is that faith that things will turn better, that everything will work out, as long as we stick together and have each other’s back. And that they do. They might have shown some tough love at times, but they are always there for each other.
Judd Laramie was so delightfully easy to fall for, completely. His humble kindness, his sense of humor, his way to look at life and the people he interacts with, he won me over from the start, no doubt about it. He struggles with his demons from his challenging childhood, yet he is honest about them and doesn’t hide behind the troubles, but is trying to move forward.
Cleo Delaney is a feisty, spirited, determined, and brave, a true heroine doing her best to save the kids of a friend who passed away. Her passion for life and everything she engages with is admirable and fiery, as she gives her all every waking moment.
The connection between Cleo and Judd goes all the way to their teenage years, as does the burning chemistry between them, the attraction that has been there for always. It is a tangible force, that takes off like a hurricane, and there is nothing they can do to stop it, so they just enjoy the ride (the pun intended.)
Hot Texas Sunrise is a story of survival, a family of heart, the strong bonds of brothers, and about resurrection and love. It is a tangled mess, it is fervent and intense. It has such hilarious unexpected humor in the most serious situations, and it has the feels, all the emotions on the surface as the story unfolds. I savored each moment of the tale, pacing myself, so I could catch each nuance and twist, take pleasure in a story while getting to know Judd and Cleo, and the whole wanton bunch at the Coldwater ranch.
~ Five Spoons!
This book started off really strong for me and then fell apart through the middle into the end. So much was happening and I didn’t feel the authenticity of the situation with the boys. Cleo’s history didn’t feel all that bad to me for such scrutiny when the primary goal is to keep the kids together. And the way Kace stepped up and Judd still didn’t make a move towards that rubbed me the wrong way too. Lavinia didn’t get fully solved and Judd’s coming around happened so late in the book it was too late for me. The bright spot that I really adored throughout the story was Judd seeing something in Beckham that reminded him so much of himself and the lessons he brought to Beckham. It was worthwhile and made me feel hopeful at his turn around on the situation.